The Little Things
by kristimazing
Summary: When Campbell Saunders relocates to Toronto after accepting an offer to play for the regional hockey team, adjusting is anything but easy. With his preexisting demons and inevitable speed bumps, will he ever find asylum in the unfamiliar? Cam x Maya.
1. Old Hats

**A/N: **Hi there! After writing about twelve-hundred one-shots (and only posting two. Lol), I have decided to try my hand at writing a full length story, with a little bit of guidance on your part—only on whether or not to continue, obviously. This idea just popped into my head during school one day and I thought I'd give it a shot. This will be an eventual Camaya story, but for now, it's just Cam. In the beginning, is has not left yet. He's still home. Contrary to my first one-shot (Bullet from a Gun), Justin and his father are both alive and well. :) Please review, tell me if you like! The continuation is in your hands!

This chapter took about three million years to write. I had so many ideas and only a few words to make it work. I'm happy with the way it came out. I felt sad, I awwe'd, I read it over. It may be a bit draggy, and for that I'm sorry! So, if yoPu like, review, review, review! and I will continue! Updating may be slow and steady however (I have a rigorous class sched. this year. boo honors classes), so stick with me! Get those little email notifications! :)

Love, Love, Love,

Kristi

PS: Szczelaszczyk is pronounced 'seh-lass-check,' just in case you were wondering. I'm a fan of difficult last names. ;

* * *

Campbell's eyes remained locked on the obnoxious analog clock above the distinguished desk before him. Out of habit, his index finger picked at the nail groove of his thumb; little instances of pain travelled through his nervous system. He had told himself several times over to knock it off, it gave the shrink reason to keep him there, yet he had continued. It was like he couldn't stop himself. In his free hand, he held the crumpled, tarnished tissue the doctor had given him after he had broken the skin almost a half an hour ago, much to his embarrassment. Every once in a while, he caught Dr. Szczelaszczyk's prying eyes peel over the desk and his hands split apart. The irony of it all was the fact that going to see the psychiatrist only made him feel worse.

He had begged his mother to stop taking him; he didn't need it, he'd tell her, he didn't have anything to say. In truth, he never gave it a fair chance. From the very first appointment, he sat mute, only speaking when necessary. He was far too embarrassed to tell some stranger all of what tormented him, all of what made his chest go tight and hindered his oxygen intake and forced him to succumb to the awful feeling always lurking in the pit of his stomach. His pleas, however, went entirely ignored if not discernibly shot down. _Do you like those scars, Campbell? _Perhaps his mother hadn't meant it maliciously, but it left its mark either way.

"Is there anything you want to tell me about?" Dr. Szczelaszczyk's deep hazel eyes bore into his. It was almost like he knew. He couldn't possibly know. Cam's stomach lurched as the events of the night before resurfaced: _he was gasping—no, he wasn't breathing—he couldn't breathe. His arms flailed around him as he tried to force air into his lungs. He couldn't think straight, his heart hammered in his chest, he was __**dying. **__Panic arose from his stomach; someone was screaming. He couldn't make sense of it either way. And then out of nowhere, Justin was standing above him, yelling at him. Something like __**stall **__or __**stoop **__or… __**stop. **_

He shook his head, as if trying to shake the memory from his thoughts. Once again, the usual silence settled back over the pair of them.

"You leave for Toronto on Monday, right?" The young doctor asked. It took him a moment to register that it was him he was talking to. Without much thought, he nodded a yes, tugging his eyeballs off the clock. _Twenty minutes, twenty more minutes. _"Are you excited? I know hockey means a lot to you, you must be so happy to have this opportunity." Dr. Szczelaszczyk's brilliantly white, straight teeth appeared behind his chapped lips. Due to his youthful appearance and attitude, Campbell found he thought himself to be universally relatable, and maybe he would have been had he been his basketball coach or his teacher, not his psychiatrist. God, no.

"Yeah, I can't wait." He slapped a fake smile on his face to accompany his lie. He wasn't the least bit excited, not even remotely. He only accepted the offer to play for the _Toronto Ice Hounds _because he thought it'd give him the chance to be his father's favorite. He wanted so desperately what he and Justin had, or even what he and his younger brother Riley had. His plan had been working thus far. His father had paid him a considerable amount of attention since receiving the offer and he was happy enough.

"You know, Campbell," He began, his eyes narrowing behind the Buddy Holly glasses perched on his nose. "I don't believe you." Cam's jaw slid open and clamped itself shut repeatedly like a fish gasping for water between its gills. "You're wrong!" He refuted far too hastily.

"There's something you're not telling me. I can tell by the way your eyes jump back and forth between me and the clock and the way you keep picking at your thumb, and the speed at which you responded didn't help either. You're uncomfortable with talking about it. You're nervous." He sat back in the leather office chair, resting his right ankle on his left leg. The smug look on his face dug itself under Campbell's skin. He looked so proud of himself, so accomplished that he had cracked Cam's code.

"I'm fine." He muttered, silently cursing himself for being so easily read. What bothered him most was the fact that Dr. Szczelaszczyk was one-hundred-percent correct. He _was _nervous, terrified of being so far away, so vulnerable. With the exception of Mike Dallas, a friend of Justin's, he knew none of his teammates, he knew no one in Degrassi, and was completely clueless when it came to Toronto itself. Where would he study? How would he get to school; would he walk, would he take the bus, would his billet parents drive him? What if he got lost? What if his billet family didn't like him? What if he couldn't make any friends? What if someone found out? The continuous strand of questions spun around and around in his head, blocking every other thought. Just the inclination of change forced a fresh wave of nausea over him.

For what felt like an eternity, the two of them sat in silence; the only source of noise being the clock, the ticking was slowly driving Cam insane. To keep himself in the room and disallow his thoughts to roam elsewhere, he counted each tock, marking an invisible tally in his head. His worries, however, played over and over like broken record. His toes tapped along with them; _one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. _A deepening shade of red spread across his cheeks; _fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. _He and Dr. Szczelaszczyk made eye contact; his anxious heart took off; _twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three_. His suddenly clammy palms ran themselves over and over his jeans;_ forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven. _

"Campbell?" The young man's face fell to a puzzled frown as his eyes traced the contours of his face. He shook his head, as if to force the cycling out of his ears. Breathlessly, Campbell responded, "Yeah?"

"You're taking the meds, right? You know it's dangerous to skip out, even for a few days. You need to keep taking them, even when you're out in the city, okay?" He felt very small all of the sudden, like a child being reprimanded. He jerked his head in a kind of nod. He understood full well what happened when he quit the pills. Everyone seemed to forget that he was the one dealing with his own life; he was the one living it, after all.

"Be safe out there. Remember that you need to call me twice a week. If you don't take the initiative, Mom told me to call you instead. Your family cares about you a lot, Cam. You can hate me and hate coming here all you want, but it makes your mom worry less, and your dad, too." Dr. Szczelaszczyk's voice rang through his ears, reverberating off the sides of his skull.

"He doesn't care." In an almost inaudible grumble, the words slipped off his tongue before he could stop them. His gaze dropped back to his sneakers as he kicked himself. His hands clamped together as if praying to God the doctor didn't hear it was going to help.

"Why would you think that?" He asked quizzically, subtly grabbing a pen and his file.

"Forget it."

"You brought it up."

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Dr. Szczelaszczyk's eyebrows disappeared into his messy bangs, the inquisitive look still evident on his youthful face. Campbell's hazel eyes danced around the room as if searching for a way out, his comfort zone completely abandoned. He settled on the clock once more; _twelve-fifty-eight. _He had to stop himself from leaping out of the chair and performing a victory dance.

He followed the red hand as it made its journey around the clock, tracing a perfect circle, and then again. The minutes flew by like seconds, and for that he was thankful. As the thick, black, hand snapped onto the _1, _he shrugged back into his jacket and slid out of the uncomfortable leather seat. "Time's up." He found it quite difficult to hide the excitement in his voice. He was more than happy to get out of there.

"I want to talk about this more, Campbell." He called after him. Cam was having none of it. He wanted no part of talking more. It was his last face-to-face session, after all. The next time he'd have to talk to Dr. Szczelaszczyk, he'd be twelve hours away where he couldn't read Cam like a book or get inside his head or drudge up the bottom of his lake. A slight smile crept onto his lips as he traipsed down the narrow hallway to the lobby of the office. A weight seemed to be lifted from his shoulders; a feeling of relief settled over him. For what felt like the first time in days, he inhaled and exhaled, savoring the sensation for he didn't know if he'd feel it again anytime soon.

His momentary happiness was short lived, however.

Suave as ever, Justin stood hunched over the reception desk; his shaggy, chestnut hair flopped over his eyes. He appeared to be speaking to the newest secretary; Campbell could have sworn she looked familiar when he came in. Hesitantly, he forced himself towards the older boy. His cheeks flushed, embarrassment overwhelming his senses. He hated when their mother sent Justin to pick him up from Dr. Szczelaszczyk's office, then more than ever. Facing Justin was the last thing he wanted to do, not after the night before. It was humiliating enough that he had to share a bedroom with his older brother, forcing him to be subjected to question after question on the ride home was far too much.

"Why are you here anyway?" The words met his ears before he had the chance to usher his brother out the door. He hadn't even made it close enough for Justin to notice him. Realization hit him like a freight train; this girl, the new secretary, was from school. She and Justin shared mutual friends. One mutual friend in particular: Mike Dallas. The heat collecting beneath his skin intensified. His legs wouldn't cooperate; he stood frozen like a deer in headlights.

"Oh, uh," He watched as Justin's eyebrow furrowed—something he always did as he grappled for an explanation. "Why am I here? That's a great question. The doctor, he—uh—he's my mentor. I'm majoring in psychology next year, hoping to get into psychiatry." He finished his ridiculously fabricated alibi with a casual smirk, earning an ear-to-ear grin from the girl. Once again, he thanked his stars this girl was just as daft as the other puck bunnies that followed Justin and Dallas around like lovesick puppies.

"Oh, wow. Psychology? You really want to spend the rest of your life dealing with a bunch of crazies? This guy," She paused, jerking a thumb in the direction Campbell had just come from. "He only deals with kids and they're bad enough. The kid he's in there with now can't be more than, like, fourteen,_ maybe _fifteen and he's a mess. I read his file." He watched as Justin's body tensed; a fresh wave of heat clawed its way up his neck, his breathing hitched.

And just like that, every bit of composure Campbell had clung to fell away like rotted boards on a dilapidated fence.

Lowering his head, he pushed on through the waiting room and straight out the door; the ringing of the bell resounding in his head. The rain fell in steady sheets, drowning out the rest of Kapuskasing. Campbell loved the rain; it soothed him, made him forget. Without hesitation, he stepped out from underneath the arch way of the building he had come to resent, allowing the continuous droplets to cling to all of him. For what felt like hours, he just stood there, following the headlights of passing cars. And how fitting? Standing in the midst of a downpour outside of the only psychiatry clinic in all of Kapuskasing. The rain spilled over his sandy hair, beaded down his face, and rested on his thin jacket, soaking the fabric. The red tint in his cheeks had been silenced by the cooler temperature. In fact, an entirely new color donned his lips: blue. It didn't make any difference to him as ravaging shivers ran up and down his spine. He had never had a high tolerance for the cold; the irony of his hockey career was almost laughable. At least he was feeling something, right?

"Campbell!" His brother's voice sent him plummeting back into reality, the bell from his exited still piercing the atmosphere. "What the hell are you doing?" Before he had time to react, Justin had pulled him back under the arch by his collar, his hands working double speed to remove Cam's sopping outerwear. "You're freezing." He commented as he slid his arms out of his own jacket, leaving them bare to the harsh weather. He stared as goose bumps popped up along the contours of his muscles.

"I'm fine." The chattering of his teeth depleted any validity of his statement. Justin rolled his eyes and placed the much-too-large coat over his younger brother's shoulders. "You're going to get sick if you keep doing this depressive stuff, not to mention hurt—first the roof, now a parking lot? Do you have some kind of death wish?" His brother's voice echoed through his ears as he guided him to the archaic _Chrysler Concord. _Justin had always been embarrassingly protective of him—in private at least. In front of his friends—as long as it wasn't vicious—he'd tease him mercilessly. Campbell preferred it that way. He'd die of humiliation if Justin did anything _fatherly _in front of anyone he had to see on a daily basis.

Raindrops sliced through the condensation on the windshield like knives. He watched as each one traced itself upwards until they all disappeared somewhere beyond the tan felt interior of his brother's car. Aside from the buzzing radio that seemed to spit out more audio ads than music, the air hung still and silent. Justin's fingers drummed on the steering wheel along to whatever song had come on. Cam fiddled with the cuffs of the jacket, his wet hair still stuck to his forehead. His brother's jaw would tighten every so often, like he had something dire to say. He shrunk away; he was already shaky enough.

In the rearview mirror, he could see the new luggage set their mother insisted they buy for him to take to Toronto. He had almost forgotten all about it. The five, lonely pieces had sat in the back of Justin's automobile for a week. Campbell couldn't bear to pack; just the thought of leaving made him nauseous. There were two days until he left and still they sat empty. He had accepted that his departure wouldn't be easy long ago, but this, this was a little much.

Rows and rows of blurred houses ran past his window. He sat mesmerized by them, squinting every so often to make out house numbers or lights on in windows or anything to signalize life. He just wanted to go home and lie in bed, perhaps eat a bowl of cereal or watch a television program. He just wanted to feel familiar before he was shoved out into the great unknown.

"So did you tell him?" Justin ground out, shattering their mutual silence. Of course he knew what Justin was referring too. He had made it quite clear that he didn't believe Cam could make it so far away for so long. His lapse the night before had only further proven his point. For weeks, Justin had tried to get him to tell their parents how poorly he was taking the impending relocation.

"It was nothing." He murmured, suddenly very interested in his fingers.

A growl fell from his brother's lips, his hands slammed into the steering wheel in frustration. Campbell jumped, startled by Justin's outburst. His eyes wild, Justin pulled over to the curb and threw the car into park. "What are you going to do when you can't lie anymore? Huh? When we get a phone call that you're in the hospital because you've done something _stupid_ again what are you going to say? It was an accident? You've already used that excuse. What else do you have?"

Time might as well have stopped moving. Cam could feel his chest collapsing on the rest of him, his eyes bulging, but he couldn't pull himself away from his brother. Justin had never, _never _taken his aggression that far. He had never sunk so low as to drag _that _back up. It had become an almost unspeakable topic in their house, well, for everyone except their mother when she wanted to silence his complaints. He couldn't even scrape together a retort. How could he come back from that?

So he didn't. He slid back to the window, wiping away the fog with the palm of his hand. The tell-tale prickly sensation sparked somewhere behind his eyes; he chomped down on his lower lip to halt it. Unfortunately, the lack of communication between his brain and his emotions worked against him. Noiseless, salty tears slid down his cheeks as he bid farewell to the life he had become so accustomed to. Changes had already begun and by Monday, his life would be virtually unrecognizable.

_Maybe it's for the better. _He thought. Maybe so.

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How was it? Let me know! :)


	2. Goodbye, Goodnight

**A/N:**I feel like an apology is in order, yes? I never expected to be gone so long, I'm really sorry! I could spout a hundred excuses right now, but I know you guys don't want to hear it. Lol. I wrote four or five different versions of this chapter because I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about continuing. While it's not really special, this was the best option, in my opinion.

This is kind of a slow chapter, and I'm really sorry for that. It's all of the pieces from various versions shoved together into some semblance of a chapter. I read it through to make sure it made sense together, and I'm pretty positive it does. If there's any discrepancies, just tell me! I may have skipped over something. (That whole author's neglect thing? You skipped things you know you've written? Your brain paraphrases? No? No one else?) I sincerely hope you're not too disappointed!

Anyway! I hope you guys like this and I am so happy that I have people who actually read this! I really appreciated all of your reviews and if I could, I'd bake you all cookies.

I promise chapter three will be here very very very very very soon! I'm going to try to update this more often to make up for its 49 day hiatus!

Thanks again!

Love, love, love,

Kristi xx.

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He awoke Sunday morning with the heaviest weight he'd ever felt resting in the pit of his stomach. His alarm clock blared into his ear, Justin cursed from the other side of the room. He couldn't move. The weight was like a thumbtack, pinning him to the pillowed mattress. The lead spread through his arms and legs and head and all the way down into his toes. He couldn't move. Or maybe he didn't want to. He couldn't be sure.

Groggy and fuming, his brother stumbled across the bedroom, closing the space between their beds. "Hey Prince Campbell, I know you tend to forget, but there's more than just you in this room and not everyone likes to get up at seven o'clock in the morning." His fist came down on the power button so hard Cam thought for sure it was going to shatter beneath his hand. He didn't even make eye contact; he just laid there, unable to do anything but stare at the dirty glue remnants left by the sticky glow-in-the-dark stars he had pasted to the ceiling years ago.

Now stumbling back to his bed, Justin grumbled something incoherent under his breath. They hadn't had a proper conversation in days. He was tired of walking on eggshells around Justin, worrying and waiting for the next oh-so conspicuous comment he'd drop by their parents. It was no secret that he thought Cam would crack within a week of his relocation.

The room fell silent, the only source of noise stemming from Justin's tossing. He roughly fluffed his pillow and flipped on to his side, decided he wasn't comfortable, flipped onto his other side, couldn't fall back asleep, so resolved to huffing and puffing about Campbell waking him up. All the while, Cam kept his eyes trained on the little glue stains, straining his memory to remember where the stars had gone.

"So that's it? You set your alarm to wake everyone and their mother up and you don't even get out of bed? Are you waiting for a formal invitation?" Justin continued. He could feel his eyes burning little holes in his cheek. He remained stuck to the sheets. Any movement he tried to make was met with such harsh retaliation that he didn't want to try anymore. Before he opened his mouth, he carefully planned his retort, practicing concealing the edge. _If it bothers you, find a new room._ Childish, but it would do.

Shame his tongue didn't feel much like cooperating.

"Do you think everyone is going to forget about me when I leave?" He shocked himself as the words chased each other out through his teeth, colliding and breaking as they went. He didn't have to look at his older brother to picture the look resting on his face; wide eyes, lips slightly parted, just as he always looked when Cam came out with something crazy.

For a moment, a hush fell between them. Still, he refused to face Justin. His gaze locked itself on the glue. If he squinted hard enough, he could make out the faint outline of half-stars here and there. Perhaps it was all in his head, because when he blinked, he lost the vague silhouettes and random blobs took their spots.

"Where did that come from?" His voice was no longer tainted with sleep; Cam couldn't decide whether or not that was a good or bad thing. He didn't even know where his question came from; it was so out of the blue, dug up from the graveyard of his mind. Once again, he didn't have to look at Justin to feel him analyzing his every word, movement, sound, no matter how trivial. He wished he had just kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to trust himself to speak predetermined thoughts; it never worked out as planned.

After what felt like hours of sitting under a microscope, he couldn't take it anymore. Desperate to scramble out from underneath his brother's empowering, scrutinizing glare, he rolled off the edge of the bed, biting his lip to suppress the whimpers clawing up his throat. The lead turned into a pounding headache, his limbs hung like dead weight. Unfortunately, the blankets came with him, entrapping him in a sort of cocoon. Their continuous, strands of fabric clawed at him as he fought to disentangle himself. His cheeks burned as he found himself rolling around on the floor of his bedroom, his legs flailing to propel his body out of the knot. Had Justin not insisted their bedroom be negative forty-five degrees all year round, he would not have been in this predicament and he resented him for it.

Above him, Justin was doubled over in laughter. _Ha ha, _Cam thought bitterly, _keep it up. _Had he been able to focus on anything past the sharp ring in his temples or the mass of his throbbing limbs, he may have stood a fighting chance against the throng of blankets. Through torrents of giggles, his older brother unraveled the cloth chains. "I can't speak for anyone else, but I am most definitely not going to forget _this!_" He exclaimed, pulling him to his feet by his arms.

"Shut up Justin." He growled, shaking the hair out of his eyes.

"What are you going to do without me? You best sleep on a bare mattress when you get to the city… no one is going to be there to rescue you from the evil blanket monster." His hysterical guffaws increased by the second, as if the more he thought about it, the funnier it became. His cheeks permanently scarlet, he shoved past him, fighting the urge to crawl back into bed. Behind him, Justin spat a few more incident related jokes he must have thought were clever to an otherworldly extent.

Across the hall, Samantha's door glared at him, the cheesy _Princess _plaque framed and hanging precariously by a nail she had fought with their father to hammer in. She argued with her boyfriend all night; for hours she went back and forth with him, going on and on about something that may have been long since forgotten had they not fallen into such combative slots. His sister was a force to be reckoned with when she was _happy. _Anything less and she was intimidation-station. Their midnight bantering grew louder and louder to the point where Justin had had enough, barged in, taken her phone, chewed Peter out himself, and hung up. And _that _had gone over just as well.

Deserting the renovated attic quarters, he slid his feet down the stairs, tip-toeing as he went to avoid the screaming floorboards. He felt guilty disrupting the silent house, as if he owed it the pleasure of complete muteness before he left. The walls had heard far too much noise in the last eighteen years.

Much to his surprise, his mother occupied the kitchen, pots and pans and half-mixed this and that littered the countertops. She was hunched over the stove, a frying pan sizzling away before her. Absorbed in her own little world, she hummed a tune he recognized immediately. The first few bars of _Here Comes the Sun _by The Beatles wafted through the air, accompanying the whole palette of smells as they fought for dominance in the small room; Cam took a deep breath, inhaling each distinct flavor.

"Oh," She jumped, her eyes widening as she spun to face him. "I didn't even hear you come down! What are you doing up so early?" The look of initial surprise had been wiped away by a plastered smile. She held the patterned oven mitts in one hand, drying her other on the _Chef Mommy _apron tied around her waist, her hair pinned neatly on top of her hair. Her tired eyes had long since lost the excitement of the kitchen. In her day, she had been one of the top culinary students at Reddington, an aspiring pastry chef going places quickly. Before she could climb to the top, Justin came along, soon followed by Samantha and Campbell, and just when she thought she'd get back into it with all three kids in school, Riley was born. By the time her youngest had entered kindergarten the year before, she had lost all desire to return to the grueling hours of a bakery, resolutely deciding to bake for those who asked, as opposed to jumping back into the business. And that had made her happy enough.

"I figured I'd get a head start on packing the last minute stuff," he shrugged, his fingers knotting themselves together as he took another look around the countertops. "What's all this for?" He nodded in the direction of the heaps of what were soon to be finger foods. For some reason, he felt an odd pang in his chest.

"The party tonight. Don't you remember? The caterer couldn't reschedule." Instantly, the weight dropped back into his stomach. He had to brace the lip of the granite to stop himself from sinking to the hardwood floor. How had he forgotten? He'd been dreading the so-called "going away party" since the day his mother came home with a box of invitations. They'd rescheduled twice already and he was to leave tomorrow; it was now or never. If his father had gotten his way, the party would have been two weeks ago on its original date, even if he had to tie his son to a chair to get him to stay.

He wasn't _nervous,_ per say, not about the party. He just didn't want to be fishbowl'ed by half of the small town. Part of the reason he had agreed to sign the _Ice Hounds _contract was to get away from everyone. He needed to escape his classmates and the _that's-the-kid _looks and the whispers behind his back. It'd been a year and then some since The Bad Day, and he still couldn't seem to shake the less-than-desirable reputation. In his opinion, his parents should have called the whole party off. He was leaving in the morning. At that point, it looked like a sloppy last minute decision.

That one little reminder sent him into the all-too-familiar haze. He swallowed hard; stressing to hold himself together in front of her. He managed a snipped response, forcing a half-smile onto his lips.

The hours ticked on like seconds and the fog clouding his entire being showed no signs of letting up. For no other reason than to appear okay, he followed his father around like a puppy, doing everything he was told. _Clean this up. Vacuum here. Did you remember to pack this? How about this? Is everything together? We're not hunting for things tomorrow morning. Are you sure this isn't going to get broken? Your medication is packed up, right? Don't forget to take it tomorrow before we leave. _His face flushed deeper and deeper as the day wore on.

By the time he had finally begun to process the first few steps of his day, he found himself slapping a whole slew of more fake smiles onto his face and welcoming partial strangers into their living room. The brightness of the day had been blanketed by the haze; _he _had been blanketed by the haze. His stomach felt sick, his head spun uncomfortably. Soon the "party" was in full-swing and his options abandoned him.

"Dude, this is like your dream come true. You excited?" His best friend's eyes shown with the smile donning his face. Ryan had been more ecstatic about Campbell's decision to play for the _Ice Hounds_ than anyone else. He had almost forgotten he was there. The house buzzed around them. Family, friends, teachers, teammates; they all mingled with each other, those who knew him best undoubtedly placing bets on how long he'd last. Streamers and balloons of red, black, and white hung from the ceiling; a banner spread across the far wall of their living room: GOODLUCK CAMPBELL!Accompanied by several _Ice Hounds _logos and little pictures his sister had drawn around the letters of his name.

He stalled in answering. What was he feeling? What he was feeling, he couldn't describe it, not really. It was too complex to explain in detail, to strong not to try. Like sandpaper behind his eyelids, rocks in his stomach, fireworks in his chest, ants in his shoes, his skin crawling and sprawling over his muscles. Whatever it was, he didn't like it, and it certainly was not excitement.

Nevertheless, he jerked his head in a kind of nod, hoping it would suffice. Ryan was not nearly as objective as Justin or his mother or even his sister. Lying to him was easy; he'd been doing it for years. He allowed the steady baseline of the faint music to fill his head, chasing away all other thoughts. He'd been so on edge, his anxiety always at bay, since Friday, and it was starting to make his skin crawl. If he was this nervous before he even arrived in Toronto, how would he be able to function when the season actually started? His thoughts began to reel with endless possibilities as he struggled to keep his frantic heart in check.

The music wasn't working.

He scanned the room, scoping the positions of his family members. Was anyone watching him? Of course not. This party was no more for Campbell than it was for his excitable friend beside him. It was more of a statement: _the Saunders family has recovered and is doing fine. In fact, we're sending the whack to Toronto to play hockey—_as if it wasn't hard enough to rejoin his peers at school the year before. If his mother had told him once, she'd told him a million times: _Think of this as a new start, Cammy, _and he'd cringe at her use of the infantile nickname. This was not a new start, just a long distance continuation.

Assuring that every eye was blind to him, he murmured an _I'll be right back _to Ryan and broke toward the staircase. His legs felt numb, like he'd been sitting on them for hours. He took the steps two at a time, desperate to get to his bedroom before anyone noticed him retreating upstairs. His parents would never let him hear the end of it if they caught him—his father, rather, his mother would just embarrass him to the point of mortification.

As quietly as possible, he closed the bedroom door, wincing as the hinges squealed. For good measure, he leaned against it, his head rolling back and forth across it. He yanked on the hem of his sleeves, pulling them down further and further in an attempt to distract himself. He _told _his parents a Farewell Party wasn't a good idea, he _told _them he didn't want one. After his incredibly rough school year, the gathering of the entire town in order to see him off to a place everyone knew he'd suffer in was hardly his definition of a great time. Perhaps he was being pessimistic; perhaps he was just being realistic.

Once he was sure he wasn't going to have a full-blown meltdown, he moseyed over to his bed and slid onto the covers. The last few days had sucked the life out of him; exhaustion plagued his every movement, thought, and action. He needed to rest if he was to even make it to Toronto. Pulling his pillow over his head, he decided the party wouldn't miss him much if he stayed up there for the rest of the evening; he didn't exactly play a large role anyway.

Downstairs, he could hear his sister's incessant laughter, infectious as always. It rang up the stairs and underneath his bedroom door and all the way to his ears and it helped. He tried to speculate what they were talking about, what kinds of stories they were telling, whether or not Justin had mentioned his squabble with his comforter this morning. Every path he lead himself down brought him back to the same ground: soon he'd be only stories, at least at home.

Out of nowhere, he remembered where the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars had gone. When Justin was thirteen and he was ten, Justin had scraped them off the ceiling with a butter knife, complaining that they let off too much light while he tried to sleep. He wasn't sure if Justin even remembered it, and that's what scared him.

* * *

**A/N: **Next chapter will be better, promise!


	3. New Hats

**A/N: **Hello, hello! Chapter three, quicker than chapter two came, as I promised! This has actually been written longer than chapter two; it was supposed to _be _chapter two. I don't know why I felt the need to toss in the scrap of whatever that was, but it happened. If you really hated it, I'm super sorry and I hope this makes up for it!

I wasn't sure if the _Ice Hounds _were given any rules to abide by, so I made up my own. i.e., I just used the standard foreign exchange student rules. The Four D's—I was two skips and a hop away from adopting them next year. Sadly, my mom thought I'd bomb the SATs if I went off to a foreign country for my junior year. Boo.

Anyway, enjoy! And thank you for all of your reviews, they mean so much to me!

Oh, I feel like I should put in a disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, as much as I'd like to, nor do I own Degrassi. It's kind of tragic.

* * *

"Are you ready?" His mother's bright eyes searched his face. The train station buzzed around them. Somewhere on that very platform, Mike Dallas, the _Ice Hounds' _returning captain, was saying goodbye to his own family. Justin kept glancing around the abandoned station, looking to catch his buddy before the train left. Had she asked him an hour ago, he would have told her whole-heartedly yes. He was ready. He had found some new confidence and he was ready to say goodbye. But now, now he wasn't so sure, or sure at all really. He'd managed to shake off the initial heaviness from the other day, but where the weight had been, a hole had opened up.

He gave a feeble nod, untrusting of his own voice. He resolved to staring after the train tracks, looking for any sign of the locomotive that would soon carry him off to Toronto. Like an army four strong, his mother, sister, and brothers stood arm-to-arm behind him. His father distanced himself from the rest of the family. Campbell was surprised he had even come. He had some kind of work-related event to attend that evening and had gone on and on and on about how he didn't think he'd be able to see him off. They said their goodbyes early that morning. For some reason, Mr. Saunders had a last minute decision change and jumped in the car as they pulled out of the driveway. Though he'd never admit it, he would have preferred if his dad hadn't shown up at all.

"Make sure you call when you get settled, okay? The Clarksons said they'll be waiting for you when you get off the train. And make sure you're always polite and on your best behavior, they seem like very nice people. I know I don't have to tell _you _this," she added, tossing an angered glance toward Justin, "but remember the _Four D's_ your coach talked about at the meeting. You know, no drinking, no drugs, no driving, no dating." The seriousness etched into the crevices of her cheeks was almost laughable. She was right; she did not need to remind him of the rules.

"I know, Mom." He flashed a quick grin. She embraced him for what felt like the millionth time in the past few days, tears welling before her eyes. "I'm going to miss you so much, baby." Her lips grazed the top of his head as she pulled him in tighter. He relished in the warmth between them, wanting nothing more than for that moment to last forever. He was calm, reassured, safe, _happy. _"Don't you forget about me now! Call me whenever, text me, Skype me." She stepped back, ending the waves of heat coursing through his veins.

All too soon, the steady _chug _of the Amtrak drew nearer and nearer until the silver bullet train pulled into the station. Like a true _Hallmark _moment, five sets of arms wrapped around him. Samantha kissed his cheek, Justin messed his hair, Riley clung to his hand, both of his parents seemed to forget that they had been in the middle of a silent argument.

Time seemed to be working against them. The voice over the intercom demanded passengers board, and just like that, they broke apart, his parents were fighting again and his brother was gathering half of his luggage, urging him to take the rest. With a quick wave to the rest of them, he stepped onto the train, a suitcase in either hand. The indescribable feeling of the night before washed back over him, any inkling of safeness or warmth or even happiness gone as quickly as it could be replaced. He watched as Justin stowed his slew of luggage above the cushioned seats of the compartment.

"Look at you, finally taking the _Hogwarts Express_." He puffed, lifting the last bag onto the shelf. When they were little, Justin had read the Harry Potter series to him and his sister over and over and over again until they were old enough to read it themselves. His joking grin calmed his sparking nerves a bit.

"Too bad I'm not going to Toronto for magic." Cam laughed, nervously picking at his palms. Above him, the same intercom voice broke through the bustling train station. _Last call for boarding passengers. _He could feel his face fall; his eyes began to dot themselves with moisture. Desperate to hold himself together, he casually rubbed his eyes, as if he were wiping the sleep out of them.

"Yeah, but hockey is pretty close." He commented, pulling him in for a quick hug. Justin was scarcely fooled, it was near impossible to lie to him. "Be good, call me, you know, all that bull. You'll be fine. Head up, stick on the ice, okay?" His words came out rushed and crammed, and as quickly as everything else seemed to be happening he was hopping off the train. Cam barely had time to shout a _Goodbye! _before he was out of sight.

It took until he lost his balance and fell onto the cushioned bench to realize the train had begun moving. A feeling of dread encompassed him. _What was he doing? _He had just left his family. He was moving hundreds of miles away to live with another family he had never met. He was going to dedicate the little life he had to hockey—a sport he didn't even like. His breathing picked up, his heart jumped and fell and flipped. _No! _

Anxiously, he rummaged through his bag for his iPod. Placing the bulky headphones over his ears, he fell into the lyrics, skimming every word with his fingertips. His eyelids fell over his muted brown orbs. Someone sat down across from him, through the slits between his lids, he watched as he kicked his bags beneath the bench._ Ice Hounds _brandished the side of a rather large duffle bag._ Dallas. _He ignored him, rolling his head toward the window, praying for the next twelve hours to slide by just as fast as the morning had.

* * *

Torontonian train stations were nothing like the quiet, barely populated stations of the Kapuskasing sort. Massive hordes of people lolled on the platform, passengers fought to disembark. Campbell, so awed by the crazy masses, nearly forgot to retrieve his belongings. Struggling beneath the weight of his luggage, each hand stressed to grasp the handles of three bags each, he shuffled onto the concrete platform.

Dallas snickered behind him. "How much did you pack, Rook?" He rolled his eyes, refusing to pay much attention to the older boy. He had dealt with the antics of one Mike Dallas for the majority of his conscious life. He and Justin had played on the same rec hockey team when they were six; their friendship took off from there. In recent years, their closeness had faded a bit, but that's not to say Dallas wasn't an occasional face in the Saunders household. Quite the contrary; Justin's friends always seemed to come in groups, never one without the rest.

Pressing through the hosts of people, he kept his eyes narrowed for any sign of his surname printed on piece of paper, anything to bring him to his billet family. His short stature made his feat incredibly futile. With each failed attempt at finding the supposed Clarksons, he had to keep reminding himself to calm down. But it was to no avail; his subconscious was not one to cooperate. He quickened his pace as he fought through the masses, barreling right on through, not even bothering to apologize to the people he had inevitably knocked with his various luggage pieces.

_What if I passed them? _ He hesitated. _Should I turn around? _With a glance over his shoulder, he decided that was quite possibly the worst idea he'd ever had. He needed to get _out. _He pressed on until he finally reached a rather emptier section of the train station. Relieved, his heart fell back into step with the acceptable track. He collapsed onto a metal bench in the center of the corridor; the Clarksons surely had to pass by on their way out, he'd just wait here for them. He wouldn't, _couldn't _go back into the sea of bustling bodies. He knew he was already ashen-faced and jittery; he didn't need to prove himself to be a psycho before he even formally introduced himself.

He refocused his attention on the information desk across from him. There was a line about ten people deep, give or take. The teller at the window looked rather bored with whatever the man at the counter was going on about. "Can you just tell me where Platform 12 is?" He snapped, "I'm sure your manager would love to hear that you'd rather stand hear and berate me over my _tone of voice _than let me get a fifteen year old off the train!" Campbell sat up a little shared a fair bit in common with whomever he was looking for.

Beside him, a woman with a whole waterfall of red hair cascading down to the small of her back clutched his upper arm. He strained his ears a little harder. "It's almost six-thirty. Did you get his phone number when you were on the phone with his parents?" She asked, her voice wavering a bit. As if completely abashed that it was so late, the man flipped back to the teller. "Look, can you page him? His name is Campbell Saunders."

_Campbell Saunders. _He said _Campbell Saunders. _

Immediately, he jumped off the bench. They _had _to be the Clarksons. Though severely out of character, he called to them. Through the tens of feet between them, his voice travelled to where they stood at the desk. At the sound of their surname, both spun around, thankful smiles spreading across their faces, confirming their identities. They strode over to him as he scrambled to straighten his clothes. _First impressions, Campbell, they're important. _His mother's voice echoed around in his head.

As they came closer, he drank their images. Both were rather young looking, no older than thirty. Mr. Clarkson, tall and lanky, clasped his wife's petite hand. Together, their features were on opposite sides of the extreme-spectrum. While Mrs. Clarkson's hair was a brilliant red, the epitome of color itself, Mr. Clarkson's was the midnight sky. Their eyes, too, were each other's inverse; emerald and onyx. Thinking back to his brother, he drew a parallel between his beloved stories of magic and adventure and his new life; Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson looked an awful lot like his picture of James and Lily Potter. He chuckled to himself, elaborating even further on his insane tie-between, making a mental note to call and tell Justin once he was settled.

"I'm so sorry we're late; traffic down here is awful! We don't come downtown much; I forgot how much earlier we had to leave." Mr. Clarkson released Mrs. Clarkson's hand in order to shake his. "I'm Seth Clarkson and this is—" His wife cut him off, stepping between the two of them.

"Jane. But you can call us anything you want." She smiled, a row of blinding teeth illuminated in the lights. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she pulled him into a tight hug. "It's so great to finally meet you! We've been waiting for today for months!" She smelled like rain and flowers and something very familiar. As if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Cam exhaled.

He hugged her back, surprising even himself. For some reason, he felt comfortable around these new acquaintances, like he fit into their equation. It was a combination of factors; their youth helped, as did their doppelganger-y appearances to familiar characters, and so did their easiness around him. They didn't put up a prim-and-proper front like the guest billet families at the meeting; they seemed themselves and he liked that. Perhaps he was simply incredibly relieved that he'd found his billet parents, but he liked to think it was deeper than that.

For a moment, they stood staring at each other. Seth and Jane's eyes drifted over his face, excited grins extending all the way up to their eyes. He returned the look, fiddling with the cuffs of his sweatshirt. He wondered whether he should say something; he hadn't spoken a word since they hustled over to him. But what would he say? As he wracked his brain for something—anything—to input to remove the silence, Jane stepped back in.

"So, Cam—is it okay if I call you Cam?" His head bobbed up and down a few times; the words he had stored in his throat slipping back to his stomach. "Do you like Chinese food?" Beside them, Seth began to collect as many bags as his hands would allow him. Just in time for Cam to reply with a peppy "_Yeah," _Jane grabbed the handled of the last suit case, leaving him to heave the duffel bag of hockey equipment onto his shoulder. He murmured a _thank you, _slightly embarrassed.

"Good, because we picked some up on the way here." Seth chuckled. He fell into step with the couple, his thoughts jammed with questions.

After they had broken out onto the sidewalk, he slid behind them a bit, trying as hard as possible to stay hooked into their conversation. It became nearly impossible. He _couldn't. _Toronto itself was far too interesting to pass up. The buildings, the people, the lights, it was breathtaking. He'd never seen anything like it. Growing up in Kapuskasing, he'd only known small town life. Everyone knew everyone, all of that _LifeTime_ cheesiness. But this, this was something completely new. He had to grind his teeth together to assure himself that his jaw hadn't dislocated itself from the rest of his face. As he slid into the backseat of the Clarksons' SUV, he caught Jane's eye in the rearview mirror, the same smile still engraved on her face.

Not too long after the scenery turned from urban to suburban, they pulled into the driveway of modest brownstone. Papery curtains peaked through the windows; a patch of green provided the tiny front lawn. It was nothing like his house, with the expansive yards and mile-away-neighbors. Here, the houses huddled close together, as if for fear one would disappear if no one watched it close enough. Here, the houses were uniform. It would take some time getting used to, but then again, what wouldn't?

Still chattering away about this and that, Seth led him up to his bedroom, the bags he had carried to the car in his hands once more. Cam grabbed the suitcase Jane had rolled in, deciding to come back for his hockey gear later. Behind the brick-red front door, a cozy home lived. Eclectic paintings and artsy furniture decorated the rooms, shag carpets and fancy electronics filled in the spaces between the two. He followed his new billet father up a flight of stairs where three doors overlooked the downstairs. They entered the farthest door on the right, revealing a rather large room. The walls were painted an odd coffee color, the furniture all the same cherry wood. A bed dressed in a grey comforter rested against the closest wall, a dresser and a closet door on the same plane. Down two steps, a desk, TV and a checkered armchair sat comfortably against a window amidst a corner of miscellaneous objects. A bin of half-used rolls of wrapping paper, a few archaic looking hockey sticks, a stack of boxes four high; storage, his bedroom was their storage room. Suddenly, he felt like an intruder.

"Do you like it? Sorry about the stuff; our basement isn't exactly an ideal place for things. We didn't know where else to put all of it." He gently piled his luggage on top of the bed, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes. "It's fine." He flashed a smile, sheepishly averting his gaze to his sneakers. His fingers laced themselves through his sweatshirt cuffs once again. Now that they were home, finalization dropped onto his shoulders. He had really done it. Kapuskasing was twelve hours and several hundred miles away, a whole lifetime of memories behind him.

The intrusion feeling manifested itself as straight uncomfortableness.

"Dinner's on the table!" Jane called from the kitchen, breaking the muteness that had fallen between them. Back down the stairs they went, Cam on Seth's heels. White cartons with black markings across the tops found home on the round table. Following his new parents' lead, he slid into a cushioned chair. His hands were numb as he spooned lo mein onto his plate, self-consciously glancing up through his eyelashes. He took far less food than he would have had he been with his family, but it hardly made a difference. He wasn't hungry anyway.

Across from him, the Clarksons ran through a few stories, pausing occasionally to ask him questions—_What's your favorite school subject? What's your favorite food? When's your birthday? Do you have a girlfriend back home? Favorite movie? Do you like to read? Favorite color? Do you have a lot of friends? What's your favorite part of hockey? Are you nervous about your first day of school tomorrow?—_while simultaneously revealing little tidbits about themselves. Seth, much to his surprise, was a history teacher at Degrassi—his history teacher. For some reason, he had a nasty feeling his placement had something to do with his mother. Jane was a librarian in the local library. They'd been married for eight years. Seth wanted a baby, Jane was unsure. Cam, as he found out, was their deciding factor. If they could handle a fifteen year old for a school year, they'd give the parenting game a go. Though he wouldn't dare say it, he wanted to tell them he wasn't really the person they wanted to rest the future of their family on; most kids didn't turn out like him.

Regardless, he answered all of their questions, growing increasingly embarrassed. He couldn't understand why and it frustrated him. He had been so comfortable around them a few hours ago; what had happened? He shifted in the seat; he drummed his fingers against the edge of his plate, telling himself he was just tired. His responses were becoming shorter and shier because he was tired. His shoulders forced him inwards because he was tired. He just needed to sleep and tomorrow he wouldn't be so tired.

He waited until both of his billet parents were finished eating before excusing himself from the table, his mother's voice chirping in his ear. _Manners, Campbell. Always use your manners._ As quickly as possible, he whipped through his nightly routine, pushed his collection of bags onto the floor, and climbed under the covers of the bed. The mattress laid like a rock beneath him, and all at once, the first dose of homesickness shimmied down his throat. He attempted to shove it somewhere where it'd be forgotten. Rolling over onto his side, he pawed at his phone on the nightstand. The fluorescent screen stung his eyes as he tapped away on the screen. Phrased and rephrased, he sent a text message to his mother, brother, and sister: _Got here safe. Clarksons are cool. Totally wiped. I'll call tomorrow. Goodnight xx_

He slept with the lights on, just in case he forgot where he was in the morning.

* * *

**A/N: **Now that it's over, can we say a few words for our beloved puppy Campbell? Dear God, please, if you care at all about my sanity, mental health, and wellbeing, please do not let the writers kill Cam off. Amen.


	4. Halfway

**A/N: Please, please read this! **

I don't even know what to say. Cam. Gone. No, I refuse to believe it. I should have been prepared for it, I mean, I knew it was coming, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it wouldn't happen. I'm taking his death harder than I've ever taken a character death in my entire life. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that they actually did it. Devastated. Absolutely devastated. I can go on and on and on about this, but it'll only result in me sobbing for the next four to six hours and I don't know if I can handle that.

This chapter may be a bit boring. Because Cam has just arrived, school scenes are a little difficult to write. However, this was one of the quickest chapters to write— odd. But I was determined to get you guys a chapter, so I really hope you like this. I appreciate all of your reviews so much, I literally get the biggest smile when I see I have a new one. (To BGuate224: I'm going to include some storylines from the show, reference others, and disregard few of them. Most of his storylines will be included in some way.)

Speaking of reviewers— I need you guys to be completely honest with me for a minute. Now that Cam has passed, are you going to continue reading Campbell Fanfiction? If you have absolutely no interest in reading any more of it (or this one in particular) please let me know. I don't do this for the reviews, so I'll probably keep writing this anyway, but I just want to know how many readers I'll have left after the initial shock of our beloved's suicide has passed. I'll understand if you're not interested anymore. However, if you are, I have big things planned for this (even if it may not look like it yet.)

Thank you so much

* * *

"_Degrassi is a good school. The kids are great; you'll make friends in no time."_

Seth's words mocked him as he fought his way from class to class, his nose buried in his schedule. Swarms of students crowded the hallways during period changes, the bell like the first gunshot into a horde of terrified people. If his shoulder so much as grazed that of another, he found himself shrinking beneath complaints and insults. Degrassi was a zoo, and not the kind that sedated the animals so they appeared docile and cuddly either.

The only faces he could pick out of the masses were those of his hockey teammates; he had met them all in person that morning during the first practice of the season. Being the youngest member of the team, any opportunities to pretend like he belonged with the guys were few and far between. Once in a while, a familiar husky voice would shout across a corridor to grab his attention, _"You look lost, Rook!"_ followed by a bout of uncontrolled chuckles from the group around whichever Ice Hound it happened to be that time. Dallas, Owen, a local senior, and Luke Baker, who had come all the way from Florida, stuck together like glue. The Twins kept mostly to themselves. The other players scattered themselves within the subgroups of the team. From what it looked like, his teammates were having no trouble whatsoever implanting themselves into the centerfolds of Degrassi.

His first four classes of the day were grueling. He slunk to the back corner of every one of them, desperate to snag a seat out of the central eye of his classmates. He regretted the decision to wear his Ice Hounds sweatshirt. When Samantha had told him the red and the purple clashed hideously together, he should have taken it as fate's way of telling him to avoid it like the plague. It was cold that morning though, and having neglected to unpack last night, it was the only sweatshirt he had easy access to. The attention he was receiving was mind-boggling. Girls who'd never give him a second glance back home were suddenly all over him, asking about his hockey career, offering to show him around the school, begging him to sit with them at lunch, jumping to introduce him to their friends. Then there were the groups who were so strongly opposed to the arrival of the hockey team that they tossed dirty looks around like candy. Neither half seemed to beput off by his shyness.

By the time the lunch period rolled around, he was exhausted. A sea of yellow, purple, red, blue, and schmorgesborg of random street clothes—the school uniform dress code had been lifted that morning during the _Welcome Ice Hounds_ assembly—bobbed across the cafeteria. Circular tables filled in the spaces, leaving little walking space. His eyes downcast, he murmured _excuse me_ after _excuse me_, his fingers tensed around the edges of his tray. A smidge wary of himself, he approached his teammates who had all crammed themselves at one table, pulling chairs away from other to provide enough seating. He seized an empty chair, setting his lunch down in front of him. The other boys, all wearing their varsity jackets, greeted him with virtually incoherent taunts. He rolled his eyes and laughed it off, praying his attempt at a joking smile hadn't contorted itself into a grimace. He didn't particularly like his new "brothers." For lack of a better word,they were all idiots. They'd been in school for a total of four hours and already they'd been black-listed by a handful of the student body. For example, at the table behind them, a group of freshmen—as given away by their yellow polos—groaned that _the hockey jerks stole their table._

Back and forth across the cramped table, pieces of food took flight over their trays. Back and forth, back and forth, a mockery of insults, back and forth, back and forth, dumb jokes, back and forth, back and forth, ridiculous taunts, back and forth, back and forth. He had barely touched his slice of frozen pizza, his water bottle sat open and vulnerable to whatever had been thrown from the other end. He was too tired to care and far too tired to sit there any longer. His overrun fatigue from the day before hadn't cleared itself up overnight; he barely had time to get to practice he woke up so late. And that, that had gotten him into a whole new ballpark of lists. Showing up to anything _Ice Hounds_ related any time after the predetermined beginning time spelled certain trouble.

Willing to submit to any kind of distraction, he tuned into the freshmen's conversation.

"_Can't you talk to your brother, Tris? He knows that's where we sit. And if they're going to keep taking all of those chairs, we won't be able to sit here either. Me and Maya really can't share for the rest of our lives!"_ A girl's voice ran circles around his thoughts. He thought a lunch table was a rather silly thing to be hung up over, but he understood why they were unhappy. They had just gotten here and they were already taking over everything like they owned the school. He'd be angry too.

"_Yeah, like Owen is going to actually take what I say into consideration. Get real, Tor."_ A boy this time. Hesitantly, he glanced over his shoulder. He didn't know Owen Milligan had a brother! His eyes shoved all the way to the corners, he snuck a peak at the small group. A tall boy, even sitting down, sat across from two girls with their backs turned, his dark bangs spilling across his forehead. Beside him, another boy, this one with auburn curls tightly packaged atop his head, gave the girls sitting directly behind Cam a discrediting look. That one, he assumed, was Owen's brother. Continuing his nonchalant sweep, his eyes landed on the clock. Five minutes left. Too long. He was ready to get out now.

"I'm going to get a head start on finding my next class," he murmured, grasping his tray. "I'll catch up with you guys later." He was met with equal amounts of different reactions. The usual _you look lost, Rook!_; the obvious _nerd!_; and the downright offensive _gay!_ He dismissed them once again, sliding his chair backwards and standing to abandon them at the stolen lunch table with the stolen chairs, pleading with everyone around him to just ignore the fact that an _Ice Hound_ was leaving the lunchroom with a full tray. The last thing he needed was for some yahoo to blow it out of proportion—their coach had warned them not to attract negative attention.

As he turned to go, one of the girls behind him stood too. In slow motion, he watched as his tray collided with hers, her milk and her half a slice of pizza and his open water spilling mercilessly onto her yellow polo. A watered down, blotchy, reddish-brown stain spread across her stomach. His jaw hung slack, he could hear his teammates hacking up a lung laughing at him. Her face mirrored his, his reflection bouncing across her glasses. He didn't know what to say, he just stared like an idiot, his cheeks flaming and his throat growing as dry as the Sahara. In that instant, however, he was drawn by a pair of crystalline blue eyes framed by rectangular lenses. Blonde tresses caressed her cheeks, a pair of pink lips rolled themselves inwards, her round face dappled pink; she was beautiful.

"No...!" She moaned, nearly tossing the tray back onto the table. The boys stared on in absolute amusement, her female counter part, however, shot daggers from her dark eyes. Suddenly napkins were furiously rubbing themselves thin against her shirt, the stain stubbornly glaring back at all of them. A wave of curly dark hair was flung over the blue-eyed beauty's friend's shoulder. "I cannot believe he just _dumped_ his lunch on you!" She shrieked. He wanted to speak up, defend himself, _anything, _but his voice had escaped him. Instead he continued staring, grappling.

Like a speeding bullet and all at once, a dam broke free somewhere in his throat, releasing a whole mess of frantic apologies. "Oh my God, I am so sorry." His hands shook as he slid his own tray back onto the table, reaching across the length of it for the stack of their napkins. "I had no idea you were there, I'm so sorry." He rambled; he could feel the heat creeping across his face start to plunge to his neck and down his chest. He was on fire.

"It's fine. Just the school uniform. I won't even have to wear it after today." She didn't meet his eye, a missed chance to be sucked in by her pools. "Do you have a sweater or something, Tor?" She, Maya he supposed, turned to her curly-haired friend. "I can't walk around like this for the rest of the day."

"Not unless you want my winter jacket." She kept on rubbing at the blotch, shooting Cam angered glances as she went. He was getting warmer. If he didn't do something quick he'd have sweat pouring from his sideburns in no time—not exactly how he'd like to be depicted. Maya gave her friend—Tori?—a look of desperation and it hit him. His fingers struggled to grasp the small metal zipper resting beneath his ribcage. His trembling hands aided the process about as much as a mushroom would have. The zipper kept catching the fabric as he tried to unzip it, his cheeks flushing more and more each time.

Finally, the bottom opened up and he slid his arms out of the sleeves. "Here," he held it out to her, and when she refused, he insisted. "I feel really bad. Please, just take it." After several moments of silent urging, she wrapped the red sweater around her shoulders, her hands disappearing into the folds of fleece. She zipped it up past the stain, his name clearly emblemized on the right breast of it. Accented with the collar of her polo, she looked like a new McDonald's employee recruit, though he wouldn't dare mention it.

"Thanks." She mumbled. "I'll get this back to you by the end of the day, promise." He ignored the catcalls from the guys behind him, noting how deep the pink blemishing her cheeks had become. He could only assume his were just as red. "Don't worry about it." He forced a quick smile, "And I'm really sorry, I mean it."

"Don't worry about it." She mimicked, a replicated grin running across her lips.

As soon as he left the cafeteria, he regretted his decision to fork over his security blanket. His fingers traced the faint line running down the length of his right forearm, stopping right before the blue veins branching across the back of his hand. It was barely noticeable; one probably wouldn't have been able to find it had they not known what to look for. While not nearly as prominent as it could have been, it was still there and it was still visible. It had taken sixty-five stitches and a damn good plastic surgeon to conceal it. An accident, a hockey accident. Justin wasn't going to tell anyone; he would have gotten himself into more trouble than he'd ever been in. An accident, a hockey accident. He stuck to it, no matter how little credibility he seemed to have left at the end of each day.

He shoved his reservations back down his throat. No one knew him at Degrassi. No one except for Dallas, and even he didn't know much. No one would be paying attention; he wasn't home. His locker clanging shut behind him, he set off to find his sixth period classroom. French III, a freshmen course. He had been so embarrassed when he found out he had to take a class with kids a whole grade younger than him, even more embarrassed that he couldn't pass it the first time around. Something had to be sacrificed, however, and if it was French last year, then it was worth it. He had managed to soldier through the core classes with B's and C's and that had been enough to please his mother.

Thankfully, he found the room as the bell rung, giving him free pickings of all of the tables in the room. This classroom was set up differently; rectangular tables, each with two seats, formed a dotted crescent moon, leaving the center of the room bare. He chose a seat in the back row, right side of the classroom; far enough back to blend in, close enough to the door to get out quickly. One by one, a slow trickle of students filtered in through the narrow doorway. Before the warning bell, more than half of the seats had been taken—a big class. A few of the girls beamed as their eyes fell on him, their fingers waggling in what he assumed was supposed to be a cute wave. He pretended to be incredibly interested in his hands.

As the last bell rung, a trio waltzed through the door, the French teacher following close behind. A flash of red drew his attention. His head instantly snapped up, his recently tamed cheeks coloring themselves once more. The newly recognizable blond locks bobbed into the classroom, an irritated frown befalling her lips. One of the boys from lunch—Owen's brother—and Tori chattered on either side of her.

"Just ignore them, My. They're probably just jealous." Tristan—was that it?—chirped, clasping a hand over her shoulder. Tori seemed to agree; "Yeah, I mean, they don't have any grounds for rumors. He, like, just got here anyway. That'd make you both look stupid."

"They don't have anything to be jealous about! You know what? I'll just give it back before seventh. Maybe Katie has something in her locker." She sighed, the frown deepening.

Their conversation confused him for all of two seconds. The same girls that had flashed him cheery smiles glared as Maya strode to her seat, the _Ice Hounds _logo nearly jumping off her back, _Saunders _scrawled along the bottom. The three of them sat on the opposite side of the room, front row. Perhaps he was in their blind spot; neither had shown any inclination that they saw him. He withdrew from his peers, resting his forehead against his arms. Why hadn't he realized Maya would be persecuted if he gave her the stupid sweatshirt? Dallas had warned him about puck bunnies on the train during those not-so-often stretches when he had to take a break from listening to the too-loud music. _"The girls are crazy, Saunders. Everyone is going to want a piece of you." _He cringed.

Before he could weld himself into the chair, disappearing behind all of the freshmen French students, Madame Jean-Aux began the roll call. One by one, each of his classmates murmured a _présent _at the sound of his name. Halfway down the list, _Maya Matlin _was called, and her even voice broke him from his disappearing act. Matlin was followed by Milligan, to which Tristan responded, quickly replaced by Santamaria, the mass of curls giving birth to hand half-raised beside Maya. And all too soon, _Campbell Saunders _broke across the room and he choked out the horribly accented "I'm-here-indicator," pointedly avoiding every head that snapped his way. Every head except for a certain blond one, that is. He passed her an apologetic look; her cheeks were dappled once again.

"_Classe, commencer à travailler sur les activités en onze chapitres—_start working on the activities in chapter eleven." Madame Jean-Aux crossed through the center and back towards where he sat, balancing a textbook, workbook, and course folder in one hand. "These are yours, Campbell. In this folder are all of the notes we took last semester and a few practice worksheets as well as a class schedule with all of your assignments. Write your name on the inside covers of your books. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask, okay?" She didn't give him a chance to respond before returning to her desk at the head of the classroom.

He leafed through the pages of the textbook. A rather bright picture of a few teenagers wearing berets stretched across the front cover, a few of which sporting penned in moustaches and unibrows. A whole cluster-cloud of names and dates scrawled in various different colors of ink made home on the inside. He wrote his along the bottom, the ink smearing beneath his hand. The sheets felt like wings between his fingertips, each struggling to break free from his clutch. Lesson after lesson of French nonsense danced across the pages, none of which he could make heads or tails of.

Much to his delight, the class period skipped by fairly quickly, and before he knew it, the teacher called something out in the God forsaken language and everyone around him began to gather their stuff. He did the same, his books neatly piled in front of him. The crinkled schedule beckoned to him; he had history last, history with Se—Mr. Clarkson. Just one last class and he could go home. Without his realizing it, his head dropped back to his arms. _Home. _It felt entirely too strange to referred to the Clarksons' as home. Mostly because it wasn't. It was so far off from what his _home _was like that the differences were hysterical. _Home _was with his mom and his sister and his brothers. _Home _was his bead five feet away from Justin's. _Home _was mom's French toast and potatoes. _Home _was everything the Clarksons' house was lacking.

"Uh, hey," A sweet voice tore him from his head, his head dislocating from his forearms so quick he could have sworn he heard his neck snap. She stood before him, his sweatshirt draped over her arm, her books cradled over her stomach. "It was really nice of you to let me borrow this, but you can have it back now. Your fan club didn't really like that fact that I was wearing it… so, er, here." She shifted the weight of her school stuff; her hand loosely grasped the fabric as if it were diseased. He took it from her, resting it onto of his own stack.

"Sorry, I, uh, I don't know how to get them to stop." He rubbed the back of his neck, warmth collecting beneath his palm. "And I am really sorry about your shirt." The second the words left his lips, he kicked himself for them. How many times had he apologized? She got the picture; he didn't mean to knock her tray. She, apparently, thought the same because her cerulean eyes rolled in their sockets.

"For the millionth time, it's fine." She giggled. Infectious, it proved itself to be. In moments, he joined in, and there they were, laughing, _together_. He hardly knew her—actually, he didn't know her at all. He knew she was beautiful, he knew she was a grade nine, he knew she was related to Katie Matlin, Dallas's billet brother's estranged ex-girlfriend, he knew she was in his French class, he knew he had embarrassed the both of them, but other than those, _nothing. _But, God did he want to know her.

"We never formally introduced ourselves," He surprised himself, a smirk landing on his lips. "I'm Cam, nice to meet you." He offered a hand, praying she didn't notice the subtle shaking of his fingers. She took it, resting her books next to his. "Maya Matlin." A toothy grin stuck to her face like paper hearts on a Valentine's Day card.

"You know, you don't have to sit all the way back here by yourself. We can make room by us; I don't think Tori and Tristan will care." She added, gesturing toward her nosey pals. As soon as he met their eyes, they turned away, like they'd been caught doing something they shouldn't have.

"I, uh, I'll think about it." He pulled his hand back, rubbing his sweaty palms on the legs of his khakis. He didn't think sitting with Maya and her friends was such a great idea; Tori had already proven she didn't like him much. Once again, his mother's voice chanted the same five words; _"First impressions, Campbell, they're important." _And he had royally screwed up his first impression when it came to the three of his French classmates and their other friend. But he needed someone at Degrassi. He needed to fall into the folds of some kind of friendship. Because if he didn't—

He would not, _could not _bring that up. He shook his head, as if he could simply break up the memory into little, unrecognizable pieces, too shattered and broken to ever resurface. Subconsciously, he slid his right arm off the table, burying it behind the plastic tabletop. His demeanor must have changed in that instance; Maya's smile fell, her eyebrows knitting themselves together. "Oh- okay. I'll see you around then?" He forced the smirk back to his face, a weak nod rattling his skull.

The bell rang seconds after she recollected her belongings. With the rest of his class, he gathered his books and slipped back into the hallway, repeating his "zero-eye-contact-head-down" travelling ritual. His sweatshirt tangled itself around him once more, the security reinforced. His eyes narrowed, squinting at the room numbers above doors. Since he had left the French room, the overbearing sleepiness had flown over him and had kicked its mission into full swing, undoubtedly hindering his expedition. Around him, the halls were quickly emptying. The warning bell echoed across the lockers, and then the late bell, and then it was just him. Up and down deserted corridors, he scanned every number and letter combination.

Positive he had checked _every single room_ on the first floor, he whipped his cellphone out of his pocket, the time flashing across the screen in bright white numbers. _2:01. _His schedule found its way to his line of view, the start time of seventh period screaming at him. _1:52. _Nine minutes late. Nine minutes late, he was nine minutes late. Suddenly, any inkling of his insane exhaustion evaporated like mist over the ocean. And now he was running. There was a staircase somewhere around here, wasn't there? Perhaps his billet father's room was up on the landing. He charged back to the entrance of Degrassi, the stairwell lunging for him. He took the steps two at a time, his short legs carrying him up and up and up until he reached the catwalk. Three doors spaced themselves against the blue wall. _A1. A2. A3. _He glanced at the schedule once more before breaking through the middle door.

To his absolute horror, every one of his classmates stared after him as he stumbled over the threshold. Seth, too, looked on. His billet father, however, wore an incredibly annoyed expression, his arms crossed over his chest, the corners of his mouth turned down. As if it were possible, his face flushed corpse-white. "Mr. Saunders, so nice of you to grace us with your presence! To what do we owe this pleasure?" He snarled. He could hear his heart hammering in his ears; feel the influx of blood surging through his fingertips.

"I—lost. C-couldn't find the room. S-sorry." He stuttered, scrambling to mask the inevitable cropping up across his ashen face.

"You realize that you're twelve minutes late to my class, right?" He shrunk, murmuring something nearly comprehensible. Of all first days, this had been his worst. He had found a way to make himself look like an incompetent idiot. He had spilled his lunch all over a freshman girl. He had ruined said girl's day by lending her his sweatshirt. He had managed to drudge up Unthinkables in front of the same girl. And to top it all off, he had gotten himself completely lost right before his billet dad's class. In his defense, however, Seth had no reason to be angry—he and Jane had been a whole half an hour late getting him from the train station, though he figured it wasn't an appropriate time to bring _that _up.

"Take this front seat here." He said, his index finger grazing the top of the desk. Cam did as he was told, reluctant to draw any more attention to himself. Gradually, his anxious heart dropped back into a steady pattern, having decided whatever danger had befallen him no longer posed a threat. Seth resumed his lesson, scrawling a few noteworthy words on the chalkboard.

Inadvertently, his thoughts ran away from him and he chased after them; a continual journey that almost always proved itself fruitless. Still, he began his metaphorical quest, searching for the runaway train. Along, the way, he caught fragments—barely decipherable, but still there. Somehow, he had gathered more pieces than anticipated; all of the sudden, he remembered he had to call The Good Doctor and his stomach dropped, tying itself into little knots. Defeated, he resumed his position from the class before; his chin rested against the red sleeves, but his eyes, however, no longer struggled to hold themselves open.

* * *

**A/N: **We will get through Cam's death together. Degrassians stand strong.


	5. Backwards

**A/N: **First off, I just want to thank you all. Seriously, you guys are the best. Thank you for all of the feedback & positive comments. I appreciate more than you know. It brings a smile to my face to see that I have new reviews/follows/favorites. This is probably the cheesiest ((Cheesy... D;)) Author's Note, but I really do mean it.

Moving on—this chapter took a while to write/polish, and I was a little worried that it was going to be too much with chapter four, but I decided that I'd go for it and get this sector of Cam's new life out of the way. Honestly, I felt really bad for him as I wrote these two (meaning chapter four and chapter five) because if my first day went anything like his did, I would be on the first freakin' bus home. Originally, four and five were all one chapter, but I decided to split them up because each half was already on the long side.

Just a reminder: 'Szczelaszczyk' is pronounced like "seh-lass-check." I'm pretty sure someone asked again. ;p I really didn't think naming him through too well.

Enjoy lovelies, and thank you again!

~ Kristi

* * *

His room was cold. The wooden boards creaked beneath his feet as he walked across them. The walls wanted nothing to do with him; for some reason they looked further away with each passing minute. He supposed he liked that better than feeling suffocated by them, but this way, he felt lonelier. Even his bed, left messy and disorganized in his mad dash to leave the house that morning, sat perfectly prefect, the pristine sheets drawn so tight over the mattress he could have bounced a quarter off the middle. Their neatness scorned him; this wasn't him. His mother was lucky if she didn't have to remind him three or four times a morning to put his dirty clothes in the hamper. His room was cold, but in more ways than one.

He couldn't put a time to how long he'd been sitting there, his back pressed against the hard edge of his bedframe, his spine begging him to release the pressure splitting his vertebrae. The sun had since disappeared from the window, a dusky evening sky settling in its place. Jane had knocked on his door three times since he'd been home. He ignored her.

As soon as Seth had pulled into the stubby driveway, Cam had bolted from the car. His host father had made it quite clear he was no more a fan of the _Ice Hounds _than he was a fan of terrorism. Apparently, he had several other members of the team in class, an experience he'd rather trade for a _whole class of inclusion kids, _as he had ranted in the car on the way home. It wasn't what he said about his teammates that bothered him, it was the fact that he was thrown into the mix. _"You will show up to my class on time. You will do your work and hand it in on time. You will behave like a civilized human being. As long as you're living in my house, you'll stick to my rules, hear me? You and your Hockey Team from Hell need to grow up and stop acting like we all owe you something. Hate to break it to you, Campbell, but you're no better than the rest of us, even with your impending NHL deal. Got it?" _And Cam had swallowed hard and refocused his attention out the window, clenching his teeth and biting his tongue and holding his breath until his lungs burned.

He couldn't understand how someone who had been so cool and laid back not even twenty-four hours earlier could flip a switch and contradict every personality determination he had made. He had pushed past Jane, who looked confused and concerned all at once. It was too early for her to be concerned. He needed to get away from them for a while. He needed to get away from everyone before he had a meltdown. But as he had fallen through his bedroom door, he realized that people wouldn't be the only contributing factor.

His bags, strewn like discarded papers that morning, were nowhere in sight. Instinctively, he whipped the closet door open, his _Ice Hounds _backpack sliding halfway across the room. Inside, neat rows of jeans, dress pants, t-shirts, button-ups, sweatshirts, jackets, and sneakers lined themselves up for viewing. His heart stopped beating. Jane must have put his stuff away. Jane went through his stuff. Jane looked concerned. His stomach began to churn. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of the corner of a suitcase beneath the mattress. Clinging to the last glimmer of hope, he dove for it, pulling its companions out as well. His hands clumsily unzipped every zipper of every compartment. For a fleeting second, he could have sworn he heard the familiar rattling inside of some obscure side pocket, but his mad search concluded unsuccessful. The pills, Jane had found the pills. Jane _knew._ Suddenly, he wanted to throw up.

Forgetting to fish the damned prescription out of his bag that morning had given him far more problems than he had anticipated. Not only had he been anxious all day, but now he had allowed Jane to discover what a psycho he really was. He wondered how long it would be before she realized they really didn't work at all, or how sporadic and careless he was with taking them, or how loosely he was attached to the same ground they were, or how naturally crazy he was. He fell limp against the leg of the bedframe, his feat sticking straight out in front of him. His phone buzzed in his pocket, his heart buzzed in his ears, the room buzzed around him. He couldn't believe it. He should have had more time in between his arrival and their finding out. No matter how many times his mother had stressed the fact that his billet parents _needed to know, _he never actually planned on telling them—anyone. No one needed to know. Too many people knew.

Before he knew what he was doing, he slid the newfangled, chiseled block of glass and plastic out of his pocket—a parting gift from his parents—and tapped the _contacts _icon, disregarding the steadily rising number above the _messages_. Blindly, his numb fingers scrolled through to '_D' _before tapping _Dr. S—_the one name in his whole list he dreaded the most_. _The bilious feeling intensified as he brought the phone to his ear, recognizing he could not undo the call. Backing out would only lead to yet another problem. His palms grew sweaty, his eyes nervously flicked across the room to the door knob, the lock resting comfortably in the vertical position. He inhaled.

Three deafening chimes and a voice broke through the other end. "Campbell? I wasn't expecting a call so quick! How's TDOT?" The Good Doctor's exclamatory attitude made his head spin. He could almost see the young man leaning back in the leather seat—far too professional for him—with his dress shoes kicked up onto the desk, a smile jumping off his lips as he tossed a hacky-sack back and forth between his face and the ceiling.

He had a whole explanation and lead up carefully planned: short sentences to hide the anxiety flushing his circulatory system. But the second he opened his mouth, they slipped backwards, a flock of jumbled and mixed up urgencies pushing ahead. "I didn't want them to know. I didn't want to tell them. But Jane, she put away all of my stuff, _she went through my stuff. _They weren't supposed to find out, not like that. I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do. You're supposed to know what I'm supposed to do." By the end, he was panting, his free hand clasped over his eyes.

"Hold on, let's take a breath, okay?" He listened as Dr. Szczelaszczyk shuffled something on the other side. Feeling oddly trusting now that there was hundreds of miles worth of distance between them, he did what he was told. He sucked in all of the oxygen his chest could handle, waiting until black spots started cropping up across his line of vision before letting it spill back out through his nose. "All right?" He asked; Cam nodded, forgetting the doctor couldn't see him.

"Yeah." He sighed, tucking his knees up to his chest.

"Okay, good. Jane's your billet mom, yeah?"

"Yeah." He repeated, fidgeting with the hem of the school khakis.

"And what did she find, exactly?" The overly suggestive tone, sour as always, made him squirm. Though Cam had found some trust in the separation, Dr. Szczelaszczyk seemed to find the exact opposite.

"I told you I didn't do that on purpose." He snapped, his eyebrows connecting themselves. He regretted calling at all. All he had managed to do was make him feel even more uncomfortable. Snippets of his very first meeting with the man on the other end resurfaced somewhere in the very back of his mind. It was amazing they were able to force him back to the office at the end of every week the way that had went. He shuddered; the mental _delete _key flipped on to erase it.

"What did she find in your stuff, Cam?" He pressed, his nickname sounding all too strange coming from him, too friendly.

"I don't know, the pill box, the prescription bottle, the doctor's note for drug testing, all of it." He mumbled, his head resting against his knees. "I don't want to tell them." He felt awfully juvenile, like a whiny child being indulged by some sympathetic adult. He hated it. His very first full day away from home and everything was already going south. He knew he wasn't being very fair; he couldn't rest his time away from home solely on his first few hours. Firsts were always the worst. He knew that.

"You don't have to tell them anything you don't want to, kid." The hacky-sack tossing image was quickly replaced by the same man pinching the bridge of his nose. "Are you embarrassed? You should be proud of yourself. Not everyone can bounce back as quickly as you have." Now he was desperate for a change of topic, his skin itching with every word travelling through the scratchy wavelengths. Twice in the same day. He needed to not think about that anymore. He needed to not have it brought up.

"I just got here. They weren't supposed to find out." He couldn't control the mindless string of repetitive statements that seemed to flood his thoughts. If he really concentrated, he could hear Jane and Seth's garbled voices underneath the door. _"We need to talk to him, Seth! This is serious." _She hissed, to which Seth flippantly replied, _"Well, what do you want me to do? Break down the door?" _With each ricocheted word, he grew more and more sick. The knots that had developed during his history class pinched harder, his heart knocked so hard his chest hurt. This wasn't how his first day was supposed to be.

"Why are you so afraid of telling them, Cam? You were going to have to do it sooner or later. You're stuck out there for a whole semester." _Stuck._ He was stuck. _Stuck. Stuck. Stuck._ The five letter unit crashed into the walls of his skull, splintering and shattering and shaking with each hit until all that remained was the top half of the _S _and the bottom half of the _K _floating amidst a heap of irreversible damage.

His fixation on the little, broken pieces distracted him just enough for his tongue to spill the contents of day, the verbal waterfall cascading through the speaker and into Dr. Szczelaszczyk's ear. From the very top of the morning to the very bottom of Seth's undeserved chastisement, he barreled right on through, his demeanor cracking more and more with each sloppily conveyed thought. It didn't answer his question nor did it tie into his entrapment, but he couldn't cut it off. He could barely restrain himself as he finished with a choppy, "Seth already hates me; how am I supposed to survive here, in their house, with them thinking I'm some kind of psycho?" By then, his face was completely buried in his thighs, his chin flattened against his collar bone, the silent drops spotting his pants. He wasn't even sure how much of it the man caught or how much he should have kept to himself. He couldn't remember ever sharing as much as he did, tottering on the brink or not.

For a moment, The Good Doctor said nothing. The crackling of mutual breathing bounced back and forth between them. Around him, the house settled. He could hear footsteps on the stairs, and then they'd disappear, as if they had changed their minds about coming up. _"He's talking, probably on the phone, J. What do you want me to do?" _Seth snarled. _"He's gotta come down eventually." _He shrunk further in on himself.

"Take another breath." He demanded; Cam complied. Breathing was like his trademark, his fix-all for every problem, but breathing didn't work much for someone who spent so little time doing it properly. Even so, he fell submissively at the mercy of his psychiatrist, whom he never thought would be of any help at all. Cam swallowed this one, pushing it all the way down to stomach, pumping is whole body full of air. "One way or another, you're going to need to get those back from your billet mom. If you don't feel comfortable with talking about last year, just tell them that. They can't force anything out of you. No one is going to think you're a psycho, Cam. You know who you are." Cam's desperate tongue lurched to toss in a _'No I don't,' _but he bit it back, unwilling to offer up anything else. His head still spun, faster and faster until he was sure there was nothing left.

"You okay, buddy?" He threw back after a few seconds, like his silence was some sort of red flag. He murmured another _Yeah, _pulling himself off the floor. "One more thing, okay? Don't hang on what your billet dad said, okay? It sounds like he was just stressed out and took it out on you. He shouldn't have said it and he probably wasn't thinking. People do that sometimes, you know? You just got to the city; don't kick your experience because of a few setbacks, okay?" _Okay, okay, okay, okay. _Dr. S said it so many times that it began to join forces with the leftovers of Stuck.

"Yeah." He repeated, a recurring answer it seemed.

"Okay, you'll call later?"

"Yeah." The word was so familiar to his lips that it just pushed itself past his brain.

"Okay, I'll talk to you then."

"Bye."

"Oh, and Campbell—" Click. The Good Doctor defeated by the_ end call _button. Almost comical. He crawled on top of the mattress, causing as much damage to the neatly made bed as possible. His heels dug into the fabric, his hands clawed at the top, his head flopped onto the pillow, wrinkling the fabric casing. He rolled over, his face pressed into the same spot the back of his head had just demolished. From the back of his throat, a muffled scream erupted, shattering the last pieces of his thoughts. He pressed harder and harder into the pillow until he felt dizzy, little fibers sticking to the roof of his mouth as he heaved into the cushion.

Much to his surprise, he didn't call back, and for that he was thankful. He thought about calling someone else—his brother or his mother or his sister or maybe even a friend from back home—and immediately discharged that idea. He didn't want to burden anyone. He didn't want to become someone else's problem. He was enough of a problem for himself. Flipping back onto his back, he locked eyes with the ceiling. The white paint streaked above his head, the coffee-colored walls spilt onto it in the corners. His hands clasped themselves over his forehead, his fingers forming a sort of visor. The fatigue that had been hanging over him like a black cloud settled around him once again. He wanted sleep. He found he craved that a lot. Try as he might, unconsciousness refused to take him.

His thoughts flipped through pictures of the day: his first meeting with the _Ice Hounds, _all tough and older and terrifyingly condescending; his view from back corners, the teachers writing in fine print; Maya and her stained polo, Maya and her beautiful eyes, Maya and her laugh, just Maya; his poor sense of direction and the little bubble that could have exploded; Seth, and well, Seth. It was pretty horrifying, and if he had been wary of coming to Toronto two days ago, he was regretting his decision like his sister regretted piercing her ears with a safety pin.

"Campbell? Can you come down here, please?" Jane's voice flitted into his head, shocking him from the mental scrapbook. He froze, sickness forming in the back of his throat. His mind racing back to his young doctor, his muscles tensed. _One way or another, you're going to need to get those back. _He was right. Involuntarily, he rolled off the edge of the bed, his legs jerking like the Tin Man's. He could have sworn his joints squealed as he took choppy, haphazard steps toward the door. The brass doorknob scalded his hand as it twisted in his palm, his fingers flicking the lock. Automatically, he pulled back, expecting to be greeted by angry, blistered patches. Instead, a swatch of creased skin mocked him.

Much like his room, the rest of the house was cold. The stairs screamed in protest as his feet landed on each and every one of them. Just for the sake of silence, he debated whether or not jumping the remainder of the flight would be considered reprehensible. His socks drifted across the polished wood, his balance compromised. The eclectic side rooms glared as he passed, he kept his eyes downcast. Inside the kitchen, Seth propped himself against the wall, his arm flung over the back of a chair, his legs crossed at the ankle. Jane rummaged through a cabinet above the sink, searching for the perfect glass. The water gushed from the faucet, creating unnecessary noise in the otherwise quiet corner.

"Sit down," She beamed, gesturing towards a chair identical to the one Seth had situated himself in. "You've been up there for so long! Are you busy? Lots of homework?" Jane's feigned interest and forced smile made his head hurt. He shook his head, his bangs falling over his milky, brown eyes, never once meeting either of their gazes.

"Oh," Perfectly rounded and evidently disappointed, the syllable bounded around the storage units and pantry and cracks between the tiles. "Well, how was school? You jetted up to your room so fast we never got to talk. I want to hear all about it." His eyebrows knitted themselves together; Seth snorted. And once again, he squirmed, discomfort coating his being like paint on the wall.

"Janie, forget it." His host father grumbled, pulling his feet back underneath himself. He stood, stretching momentarily before standing directly before Cam. While young and quirky-looking, Seth looked awfully intimidating towering above him. He cringed. "Look, kiddo, do you have anything you want to tell us?" Despite his daunting stance, his voice mirrored the picture of softness. Even so, he shook his head, unable to place a finger on why he was being so difficult. He knew what was coming, why couldn't he step up and eliminate all of what was to follow?

Seth had fallen back into the seat, a tell-all-know-all glance directed towards his wife. She, too, slid into a seat next to him, sandwiching Cam in the middle. "While I was putting your stuff away, I found a prescription for Aprotivan, Campbell." She began, a petite hand cradled his chin. At her touch, his heart rate shot off the scale, the excess blood pulsating beneath his cheeks, infusing them with its red stain. When he didn't so much as take a breath, she continued. "Are you sure you have nothing to share?"

"I—uh—no." He murmured, recoiling. He cursed himself for sounding just as unstable as this situation made him appear. His leg hopped uncontrollably, his sweaty palms running themselves over the tawny fabric. His head begged his nervous system to calm down, his eyes pulling everything in closer. The pieces of Stuck picked themselves up off the floor of his skull. As if a tornado had formed at the base of his neck, they twirled and cycled and flipped, around and around and around.

"This is serious, Cam. Are they yours?" She grabbed the little orange bottle, white capsules rolled around on the inside. Between her fingers, it looked like something dangerous, something lethal. It might as well have been. He felt so ill at that point he was almost positive he was about to keel over. _My name is on them, isn't it?_ He wanted to snap but couldn't find the energy to do so. It was near hysterical that they thought he may have taken them from someone, perhaps his father had they shared the same name. Just the image of his dad shoving one of those engraved pills down his throat every morning amused him. Mr. Saunders admitting to any kind of problem was unheard of.

"It's really nothing to worry about it." He dismissed, tugging on his sleeves.

"Please look at me." Jane firmly tilted his chin towards her. He didn't fight her, too lightheaded to distinguish features. Seth piped up, "We need to know what's up. She found antidepressants in your bag, Cam. This is definitely something to worry about." He wished they'd stop using his name. He wasn't going to forget it. His eyes mixing objects together, he blinked hard, squeezing his lids so tight his eyeballs pressed against his sockets.

"I can't believe this is happening." He whispered, the words diving off his chin before he could bring them back in. "I just got here." The repetitive thoughts from his phone call recycled themselves. The steadily rising panic forced itself against his sloppy barricades, equal pressure on both sides, each fighting for victory. _Not now, oh God, not now. _The knots pulled themselves so taut he had to clamp down on his lower lip to keep himself from crying out.

"I have to—I have to go lay down." In the same hushed and crammed tone, he sprung off the chair. His Tin Man legs shrieked and shuddered as he tripped back down the hallway, leaving two very confused adults behind him, praying they couldn't tell his knees were knocking together, or that a cold sweat had broken out on the back of his neck, or how incredible he was by nature.

* * *

The next morning, Campbell kept his face buried in his bowl of dry cereal, his knuckles turning white beneath his grasp on the spoon. Seth chewed a piece of toast in front of him, wary eyes flicking in his direction every once in a while. Jane busied herself with the dishes in the sink. He had woken up to the translucent bottle on his nightstand accompanied by a glass of water without a word, though he couldn't remember ever falling asleep. His cheeks pink even on his own, he swallowed a pair of them, wincing as they grazed the back of his throat.

Through tentative bites, he clenched his hands tighter and tighter. Degrassi was waiting for him on the other end of a fifteen minute car ride. Degrassi was waiting for him with angry peers, ignorant admirers, frustrated teachers, endless hallways, his snarky team mates, and above all, Degrassi was waiting for him with Maya, who had managed to wiggle her way into his thoughts. No matter how hard he tried to scrub the puffiness from his eyes—when had he been crying?—or work the aching out of his muscles, both remained, evidence of what had happened the night before. He wondered if he looked as terrible to everyone else as he did to himself.

Jane had since taken a seat at the table with them, her fingers laced through the handle of a coffee mug. She swirled the steaming liquid with a spoon, a little whirlpool forming in the center, a white dibble of foam acting as the axis. With each revolution, he fell further and further into the mesmerizing ripples. The clanging of her spoon against the edge of the ceramic mug reverberated in his temple, sharp pains raining down from the crown of his head. Instantly, he pulled away.

"Anxiety attacks," his teeth ground out the words as if they had thought of them themselves. Jane dropped her spoon. Seth put his toast back on the breakfast plate, wiping his fingers on a napkin. "That's what the Aprotivan is for." It wasn't until he said it that it registered, and like the drop of a hat, his cheeks flushed. And all of the sudden, he wasn't hungry anymore. His fingers clasped around the rim of his bowl, he dumped the remainder of his cereal into the garbage can. The eyes of his billet parents bore into the back of his head, burning away at his scalp. Subconsciously, his fingers ran over his hair, just to be sure there weren't budding bald spots.

"I'll be in the car." He called back down the hallway, shouldering his hockey bag and grabbing the strap of his backpack. The bitter wind whipped against his cheeks, the drastic drop in temperature from the day before stinging his exposed skin. Bunching the _Ice Hounds _varsity jacket up around his ears, he shoved his belongings into the back of the SUV, praying to God his first day was rock-bottom, praying to God that there was nowhere to go but up.

* * *

**A/N: **I just want to point this out— "Aprotivan" is not a real medication, I made it up. I didn't want to use an existing treatment because I'm not totally clear on how antidepressants affect emotions/dependability/etc., so I figured, just to be safe, I'd just create my own with its own side effects and effects and all of that good stuff.


	6. Fit

**A/N: **I AM SO SORRY! I seriously cannot say that enough. I really meant to update sooner, but these past two weeks have been crayy-zee. I usually do most of my writing on the weekends, but last weekend my little sister made Communion and the weekend before I spent with my cousins. I had the first part of this chapter written for ages, I just never got around to finishing it. I'll admit, this is not the greatest chapter, but it gets the job done. I hope it doesn't disappoint you too much. I really wanted to get this out quick, so I may have rushed. A little bit. (Okay, a lot.)

Thank you so much for all of the reviews on the fifth chapter! I love them! Just for a little clarification, this chapter skips ahead a little bit. I am ignoring the Maya x Tristan x Cam Facerange conflict from Walking On Broken Glass. I feel like I'm slaughtering Cam and I think I should really give him a break. lol. So, here's a fairly light chapter! In other words, this is kind of filler-y.

I also took some creative liberty with the floating timeline—I mention Les Misérables (the movie) in this chapter. I know that it came out way later in the year than where this is in 2012, but we're going to pretend that it came out in December of 2011 as opposed to December of 2012.

Another thing: someone on Tumblr asked me where I got the title for this from. It comes from the song "Waiting..." by City and Colour. There's a verse that goes "Oh, it's the little things you miss when you're underneath it all;" it just stuck with me when I was mapping the story. I don't know if that gives anything away. lol. :)

ThankyouThankyouThankyou!

~ Kristi.

* * *

His fingers positioned themselves against the grooved edge of a quarter, his feet tucked behind the bottom bar of a barstool, his sweatpants falling over his heels. Jane and Seth sat at the table, both sets of eyes locked on his forehead. He felt like he was always in this position—his billet parents constantly harping on his _worrying _behavior, begging him to tell them _how to help. _He had help. He was fine. He told them over and over and over again. Though the last time he had given them the same treatment, he wound up having a massive panic attack, which probably didn't help his case any. Focusing the little energy he had on the coin in front of him, he gave it a spin, the silver circle morphing into a miniature tornado. He followed it as it ran circles in front of him, wavering a bit before colliding with the glass of water to his right and toppling flat. He reached to grab it again, but something told him he shouldn't.

He had been in Toronto for two of every day of the week, save for Monday—he was on his third Monday. As much as everyone kept telling him it'd get easier, it wasn't. The last two weeks had been riddled with Degrassi hallways and classes and homework and practices and lectures and missed phone calls and ignored text messages and questions and funny glances and invitations that only resulted in excuses of why he couldn't. His book of I can't _because'_s seemed to be bottomless. Everything from _Oh, I can't because I have hockey practice_ to _I can't because I need to Skype with my grandmother_ had been stored in his brain, waiting until someone asked if he wanted to do something to spring out like the little birds in a cuckoo clock. It wasn't getting any easier, but he was trying. At least he told himself he was.

"Did you sleep well?" Jane fidgeted with a cloth placemat. He wondered why they had even bothered to spend money on the intricately woven mats; they were only tucked away when it came time to eat. _"I just don't want them to get ruined." _She had told him when he asked. It seemed awfully silly to him, but he knew better than to press it. Trivial, really. He didn't need them to find a reason to count against him.

He lifted his eyes for a moment, nodding his head so slightly it might as well have not happened. Despite the lengths he had gone to conceal it the past few days, Seth had caught him—or the deep purple, bruise-like shadows around his eyes gave it away, rather. A four-night stretch of insomnia clung to his whole body in obvious opacity; he chalked it up to stress, blocking any other thought that told him otherwise. The _Ice Hounds' _first game was tomorrow. Coach Hardy had made it unequivocal; he was the team's saving grace. He needed to score, and score often; he needed to play well, like he'd never play again; he needed to set the tone. While he had known all along the only reason he'd been signed into the league was because of his exceptional player status, the added pressure was doing nothing to help him get his head above water.

_Sleeping well _wasn't the phrase he'd use to describe the last ten hours. He'd opt for _self-induced coma _or _three steps away from dead _or _cryogenically frozen._ Even still, the heaviness of forced slumber hung over him like a thick, leather cloak. It pushed his shoulders forward, his eyelids down, his legs into the ground with more force than he could ever remember being applied. It was almost like he'd fallen out of time for a little while, just floating out in nothingness. No dreams, no interruptions, no instances of consciousness—it was weird. He hadn't "slept" like _that _ever, not to his knowledge at least.

Jane made him take the day off from school, insisting he shove a sleeping pill down his throat and rest some. He obliged, however reluctantly. He needed to hold up appearances, he needed to go to practice, he needed to make sure his teammates saw him as just that—a teammate—rather than a little boy whom they trailed along out of obligation. He was the only _Ice Hound _floundering. It was embarrassing, especially since he was already the baby of the team. He didn't need anyone else hovering over him like he was about to crack in two. He had his host parents and his mother, brother, and sister back home for that. That's not to say he was opposed to a day off. Of course not! He was still a teenaged boy. He could have stayed home and watched a movie or two or three or five for that matter, played around on _Google Maps, _re-watched the first season of _Lost _on DVD. His possibilities were endless—a whole ten hours plus, including hockey practice, of free time. Why in the world would he object to that?

But what he got out of those ten hours was a whole lot of nothing. Seth stopped him before he got into the car, catching the back of letterman jacket by the collar. _"Whoa, buddy, you feelin' okay?" _He asked, stooping a little to level himself with Cam's hazy, unfocused eyes. He had shrugged him off, spouting five different explanations, neither connecting to the others. _"You look like you haven't slept in days!" _And he ushered him back into the house where Jane made the final decision. Within minutes, he was back in pajamas, his flustered surrogate mother pushing him back into bed, handing him a glass of water and a rather large, engraved pill. _"You need to sleep,"_ she said. He didn't even try to defend himself.

He knew one thing for sure: his parents shunned the use of such things for a reason, and a good one at that.

"That's good. That's really good." She spoke up once more, his subtle communication device finally registering as an affirmative response. He had almost forgotten what they were talking about. A wide grin graced her lips; his sleeping was satisfactory, apparently. "I think you should take another tonight around eight, just so you get a full night's rest, okay?" He nodded again, though that was the very last thing he wanted to do. Ever.

"It's not good to stay up for so long, kiddo. You'll make yourself sick." Seth added, as if he didn't know. "You know that if something's bothering you, you can tell us, right? That's what we're here for." Another nod, his token response it seemed. He picked at his fingers, unsure of what to do with himself. A hush fell between them, eyes downcast, toes tapping, disquiet at its finest. The grandfather clock in the living room belted out five, consecutive chimes; the noise echoed around the house, bouncing off the walls and furniture and decorations until it had made its presence painfully obvious. Seth's dress shoes appeared cemented to the grooved tiles, his scholarly messenger bag propped itself up against the back of his usual chair. He must have gotten home from work shortly before he woke up; Seth never remained dressed like a teacher for long after the day was over.

As if he had noticed Cam staring, his billet father shot up, like he'd forgotten something important, and began ruffling through the bag. "I picked up your work," he started. Cam could feel his insides slide backwards. Work? He couldn't even enjoy his last three hours? "You have a note sheet, it looks like, on nonionic equations for Mrs. Martin, uh, a few questions on _Siddhartha _for Mr. Townsend, Mr. Armstrong said just to take it easy—he'll go over what you missed tomorrow," He paused, skimming the end of a sheet of lined paper. "And Madame told me to take it up with your partners for the city presentation, so I talked to a Maya Matlin and a Tristan Milligan. Tristan was pretty upset that you missed today; he said you guys still have a ton of work to do. Maya told me to tell you to feel better and that they'd miss you tonight. Why didn't you tell me you were supposed to go home with her this afternoon?"

He froze. In all honesty, their presentation on Paris had completely slipped his mind. Assigned last Thursday, he hadn't exactly been much help. He was helpless when it came to French. If he could remember how to ask for a hallpass, it was a huge accomplishment. Translating entire slides of information? That was something alien to his limited French vocabulary. Maya seemed to think his weakness in the subject was funny; Tristan, on the other hand, was severely annoyed by it, always whipping out his pen to furiously scribble out mistakes. The project was due on Wednesday; they had agreed to finish whatever they had left that afternoon, seeing as Cam had a hockey game Tuesday. He had never really planned on going, forging some kind of justification as to why he couldn't make it. But now, now he felt terrible. Would they get it done without him?

"Can I still go?" He asked, the words bubbling off his tongue.

Jane looked at him incredulously, as if he'd done her some great injustice. "Campbell, you stayed home from school today."

"Yeah, but only because you made me." He half-mumbled, ready to refute every _no _she passed him.

"You were exhausted. You need to go to bed early."

"I slept all day."

"Yeah, for the first time in how many days?" His cheeks flushed. "Do you want to get sick? You have a game tomorrow; you need to rest."

"I will, promise. But I don't want to be the reason we don't get a good grade." He was standing now, inching back toward the hallway, trying to hide the heat clawing at his neck.

"You haven't even eaten yet!" Jane flipped her arms in the air; Seth glanced back and forth between the two of them.

"Maya's parents are ordering pizza." He lied.

"But—"

"Go get dressed, I'll drive you over." Seth stepped in, grabbing his car keys off the counter, ignoring his wife's slack-jaw, wide-eyed disagreement. Cam grinned at his host father, mouthing a _thank you _before racing up to his bedroom. Since their spat on his first day of school, they had buried any ill feelings toward each other and had actually gotten kind of close. He told himself this had nothing to do with the revelation of his… problems. They talked about school and hockey and video games and even books, and it was comfortable. Seth Clarkson was a very cool guy. In some ways, he reminded Cam of his grandfather.

As the comparison popped into his head, he froze. _Grandfather. _Immediately, bile rose in his throat and he wished he could take the thought back. He couldn't do it; he couldn't keep allowing himself to go back to it. His creaky fingers snatched the glass of water left on the nightstand, the liquid sloshing from side to side, a few droplets dive-bombing onto the finished table. He took a swig, the cool fluid running down his esophagus and into his chest and all the way down to his stomach, squashing what would have ended up a very large mess. His chest tightened, his vision jerked, the images blending and twisting before his eyes. He swallowed hard, refusing to acknowledge it. He pulled on a pair of jeans he had left on the floor the night before, wriggling into a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket before shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers and heading back downstairs, knocking the woozy glare out of his eyes.

"You have until seven-thirty, Campbell. I'm serious." Jane's voice shot down the hallway, stinging his ears. Seth, on the other hand, rolled his eyes. Standing by the door, he fiddled with his keys, a heavy winter coat draped over his shoulders. "You ready to go?" He asked, sizing his appearance. Cam nodded once more, fingering the written directions Maya had given him last week.

As they drove, Seth hummed along to whatever song was wafting through the speakers, singing a few words and verses here and there. He scanned every street sign, praying the next one would be Sutherland. He and the peppy blond had formed a sort of friendship over the last couple of weeks. Maya Matlin was an extraordinary girl, as he discovered. A nationally ranked cellist and cello player for Degrassi's very own _Whisperhug_, she had quite a fair bit of talent up her sleeve. She was spontaneous and thoughtful and funny and didn't pounce on his hockey career. He had sent her a Facerange friend request on a whim, a late night decision he nearly withdrew, and within the first day of her accepting, they had had a full conversation. Talking to Maya was easy, he didn't have to pretend. He had even taken her up on a few of her offers from his first day. While he remained seated in his corner, he seized every opportunity to join forces with her and her friends, hence this French project. Tori had teamed up with a group of girls she did pageants with, leaving him to fill in the hole. And that had made him happy enough.

"I think this is it." Seth leaned over the steering wheel, crossing his arms over top of it. A large, modern house stood before them, a quaint stone walkway led up to a porch, a glass front door sat beneath the overhang. He liked it; he could picture the freshman living there. It was very her. Much to his surprise, the drive concluded in a matter of minutes. They couldn't be more than three, maybe four blocks from the Clarksons'. "Check the address again."

"43 Sutherland Drive." He repeated, his eyes tracing the girly letters.

"Cool. Have fun, do work, I'll be back for you in a few hours." Cam tossed the young man a half-hearted wave as he headed for the door, watching over his shoulder as the silver SUV drove back down the street. His left hand securely in his pocket, he rang the doorbell with his right, stepping back to allow the occupants of the house to answer. Instead of the usual _ding-dong-ding-ding_ series, an immaculate cello solo drifted out from beneath the door. Maya's, presumably. He thought it rather nice of her family. She had mentioned before that her parents weren't too fond of her chosen musical path (ahem, an indie band), but they adored the fact that she excelled and played and enjoyed her instrument.

Within seconds, and older girl with jet black hair and heavy eye makeup appeared in the doorway, a tempt-me-not look on her face. He subconsciously slid back another few steps. "Can I help you?" She growled, her gaze locked on the letterman jacket. His hands wrung themselves together. He had listened to Maya's complaints about her senior sister for days. He had known Katie was a little more than upset after Dallas's billet brother—Drew?—cheated on her with another girl, but from what Maya told him, she had flown off the deep end.

"Oh, uh, hi. Is M-Maya home? We have a, um, we have a French project thing." He ducked her icy stare, his tongue tripping over every word to leave his mouth.

"Maya already has a boy over. We like to limit those—can't have my baby sister being hurt by some self-entitled jock, now can we?" Her eyes narrowed, her jaw set. His feet pulled him back even further. Maybe coming was a bad idea. Maybe he should have stayed home. Each pump of his heart resounded through his whole body. Should he go? How far could Seth have made it? If he ran he could probably still catch—

"Katie? Who's at the door?" Just as he was about to book it away from the house, a blond head of hair emerged from behind the intimidating Katie-Beast. She shoved her way past her sister, her bony arms circling around first. "Oh, hey!" A toothy grin dashed across her lips. "What are you doing here? I thought you were sick!" She exclaimed. For a second, it looked like she was about to pull him into a quick hug, but she retracted, her smile faltering. "Mr. Clarkson told me you couldn't get out of bed."

His eyes fell to his sneakers, an anxious heat pooling beneath his blood-shot eyes. "I—well—he—I was just really tired. They, my billet parents, they wanted me to stay home." He murmured, searching through his eyelashes for any sort of reaction.

"Oh, well you didn't have to come out just for us, it's only a project. Really. When I told your billet dad about tonight, I never thought in a million years you'd feel like you had to help out." A shadow of a frown whispered across her face.

"No, no, I wanted to! I wanted to help." He defended, passing her a shy smile. "It got me out of the house. Just don't tell my team I'm here." She didn't pick up on his attempt at a joke. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses, a quizzical look plastered to her features. For a moment, they stared at each other, seemingly frozen. His cheeks, still pink from his ten-hour-taste-of-death, burned. Suddenly, he wished he had taken the time to shower again, or comb his hair, or look in a mirror, for all it was worth. Katie still loomed in the background, and a new face, Tristan, now inched his way into the frame.

"Campbell! What a pleasant surprise!" He beamed, nudging the blond with his elbow. "Why don't you _invite him in_, Maya?" Wordlessly, she gestured for him to follow her into the entry way of her home, closing the door behind him. Katie had since disappeared up the stairs, storming that she was _not a babysitter. _The three of them stood in a sort of circle, Tris and Maya lingering close by, Cam sliding his arms out of his jacket.

"I guess we should get started, then." Maya spoke up, leading the pair of boys into an airy office. Cream-colored walls served as a backdrop for the medium-sized room. A mahogany desk, large and regal, stood against the far wall, a laptop perched on top. Compartmentalized papers sat on shelves, a printer underneath. It reminded him of his father, clean and cool and rigid. A window seat housed a few pillows. A polished cello leaned against the cushion, accompanied by a music stand and scattered staff paper. He took a seat next to it.

"So we have all of the research done—we did that in class—and we have all of our notecards written, info boxes printed, and pictures ready to be glued. All we have to do is assemble our poster board." She itemized, her fingers wrapped around a piece of paper. "Tris suggested we put the Eiffel Tower picture here and work around it. Sound good?" Her painted fingernails grazed the center column of the board.

He nodded, returning her smile. The three of them circled around the blank poster, little cut-outs and stickers in a pile in the center. A bottle of _Elmer's Glue _in hand, they began to paste their information pages to the blank canvas; Tristan carefully laid the rather large image of the majestic, iron tower in the middle, fussing over the little bubbles of glue raising it in odd places. "And we couldn't run this through the school's printer, why?" He grumbled, wiping at excess adhesive. "Because." Maya shrugged, winking. "This is more fun." No matter how charming Maya's optimism was, he was with Tristan on that one. Before long, the glue coated his fingers and knuckles and even stuck to his arms. He had abandoned the sweatshirt he'd been wearing, deciding he'd rather not have it caked with the stuff. Though if he looked past it, Maya was right. He was having fun, the most fun he had had in all of the time he'd been in Toronto.

"What purpose did this thing serve?" He groaned, a picture of the _Elephant of the Bastille _in hand. He vaguely remembered something about the French Revolution and The Bastille from Seth's World History class, but he couldn't be sure _what. _The French were strange people, staging a whole revolution over bread and building Saharan animals out of plaster in the middle of their cities. Not to mention their obsession with decapitation.

"That?" Tristan leaned over, plucking the piece of paper from his grasp. "Gavroche lived in it with a bunch of other street kids." The fiery boy stated it so plainly, like Campbell would be an absolute idiot to not know who had taken up residence in the fragile, dilapidated looking thing. Apparently, his facial expression reflected his thoughts because Tristan's shoulders fell. Eyebrows raised, he continued. "Never kick a dog because he's just a pup? Do you hear the people sing?" He tried, his hands wildly dancing in front of them.

Maya sighed, a teasing smirk adorning her lips. "He's _obsessed _with Les Mis." She laughed, "Gavroche is one of the characters, a little boy."

"Tell me you've heard of Les Mis." He jumped back in, eyes wide and pleading. "It's only, like, the greatest musical of all time. We saw it over Christmas break and oh my God, if I could marry a movie, that would be the one!" He gushed. Cam leaned back on his palms, shaking his head. The freshman was completely abashed, his mouth agape. "No way." He drew the syllables out until they were no more than rasping whispers, slumping back against the leg of the desk.

"We're not really musical people. Or historical people." He explained, his shoulders meeting his ears. "Unless it has something to do with sports, girls who receive threatening text messages, or animals, we don't see it." Sporting events had always been the unifying force of the Saunders family. Basketball, baseball, football, _hockey—_every game was recorded, though no one ever got around to watching a second time. Samantha and his mother were completely engrossed in confusing, often violent and far-fetched television programs following the lives of teenaged girls. His father and little brother shared the same interest in wild animals of all kinds—gazelles being chased by lions, zebras grazing in Africa, penguins navigating the artic, they couldn't get enough of it. Most of this, he didn't understand. Just the thought of his family, hundreds of miles away, forced a pang of homesickness to surface in his chest. Thick and heavy and suffocating, he wondered whether the other two could see it bulging through his t-shirt. He begged himself to ignore it, praying his face hadn't contorted in his desperate scramble to suppress the itchiness budding behind his eyelids.

"The Saunders clan sounds like an interesting bunch." The words might as well have been marinating in sarcasm.

"Tristan!" Maya hissed, a warring glance bounding across the spans between them.

"What? I was just saying!" He shot back before turning to him. "You know I didn't mean it like _that, _right Campbell? Seriously, I was only joking."

"I know." He rolled his eyes, fiddling with the corner of a textbox. What he hoped was an easy smile tickled his teeth. A conversation sparked around them once more. The younger two chattered about this and that, drawing him in every once in a while. Soon after, their presentation had been completed and rehearsed, and they were left to hang out for the remainder of their time. Campbell found himself placing himself into everything Maya and Tristan brought up, breaking his boundaries. Stories collided with each other above their heads, morphing into completely different tales. An anecdote about Maya's first soccer game, Tristan's running commentary of an elementary school play, a narrative of Cam's very first time on the ice—they broke into pieces, falling seamlessly into a melting pot.

As time wore thin between them, he began to feel better, lighter. For the first time in a very long time, he felt accepted, _welcome._

And he'd do anything to keep it that way.

* * *

**A/N: **Did you hate it? I promise Chapter Seven will kick this one's butt, and it'll be here quicker (hopefully). Oof, Déjà Vu.

I want to just clear up the timeline so far. Chapter One took place on January 6th, Chapter Two on the 8th, Cam left for Toronto on January 9th, his first day at Degrassi was January 10th, this chapter jumped to January 23rd, making the Ice Hound's first game the 24th. Does that make sense? ;)

Thanks again!


	7. A Thousand Shades of Blue

**A/N: **Hello, hello! It's been a big week for Degrassians- The seniors aren't graduating until June. Wat. Are they seriously going to push the finale back three months? That means Season 12 lasts for almost an entire year! And that also means that the summer hiatus will only be a few weeks at the most. Compared to their Spring Break, their Summer Break will be like nothing! I'm happy to see that the 12C episodes are getting "better." I'm not sure that one episode before the filler finale is saying anything, but I'm glad that Zombie didn't suck as much as Karma Police. I can rant for ages about 12C and the reasons for Cam's suicide, but I'll save myself the emotional turmoil.

Anyway! Here's a brand-spanking-new chapter. Let me just say this right now: I DO NOT HOCKEY. The only thing I know about hockey is that the object of the game is to get the puck into the net and that there's a lot of fighting in professional hockey. I went to a NJ Devils game a few years ago and we even saw blood! Yikes! For that reason, there's limited hockey-talk. I mean, there's only so much wikipedia can teach a girl! (After Rusty Cage when Luke says "Coach bag-skated us for an hour last night" I literally thought their Coach's name was Bag, as in Coach Bag. Unbeknownst to me, bag-skating is kind of like running suicides. Ouch.) If you're into hockey and I'm using wrong terminology, I'm really sorry. Like I said, I know nothing. I had a whole game description, but I decided it was too sloppy to leave in.

I'm hoping this chapter goes over just as well with you guys. This is more or less Say It Ain't So (2), minus Bianca, plus other stuff. I've decided to include certain aspects of the show while nodding in the direction of others, ja feel? I've also decided to start naming my chapters. There's a first for everything, huh? :)

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter and/or Spring Break!

Enjoy! xx

* * *

"Enjoy your day off, Rookie?" Deep and threatening, Mike Dallas's voice reverberated around in his head, the crack of a whip shattering the glass wall he had placed between him and the rest of the world. The older boy's hand on his shoulder startled him; the headphones that had rounded his head somehow slid to his neck, leaving his ears red and furious. He had managed to avoid his whole team in school, changing directions every time he saw the familiar flash of red or cocky smirk plastered to a familiar face. He had even gone as far as eating lunch with his billet dad, who ate up the time instead of the food in front of him. "Too sick to come to school _and _practice, but you had the strength to stop by Chicken Cutlet's house, huh?"

Dallas slid into the seat behind him. His breathing hitched; his sweaty palms ran themselves over the upholstery of the bus seats. Before the day had even started, Tristan had come barreling down the hallway, red-faced and winded. _"Oh my God, Campbell, I am so sorry." _His eyebrows had furrowed together; what did he have to be sorry for? Only when he continued, it became pretty clear. _"Owen asked what we were doing at Maya's and your name just kind of slipped out. I am __**such **__an idiot! I know you didn't want those animals to know you skipped practice. I am so, so sorry." _ He hadn't known what to say, so he didn't say anything. He wasn't mad, not exactly. He knew it would get out sooner or later—the _Ice Hounds _were like class A detectives when it came to finding absent players—just not the day of the game he'd been stressing over for a week.

"You just better hope we win." The last, a heavy boot stomping over the last bits of his wall, the shards digging themselves into his skin. He waited until he heard the shuffling of feet behind him to pull the headphones back over his ears, whatever song had been playing before Dallas interrupted had changed, something new pulsed through the small speakers, drowning out the fifteen players crammed into the back of the bus. He clasped and unclasped his hands, wringing and twisting his fingers into knots, anything to get them to settle down. A tsunami of negativity washed over him; his thoughts ran circles around each other. If he had learned anything his past two weeks, it was to never underestimate the power of Mike Dallas and his hockey cronies. He had heard his fair share of horror stories from veteran players—he didn't need to be the subject of one.

He mindlessly flipped through his music library to give his trembling appendages something to do. Little spurts of oxygen entered and exited through his nose like flashes of lightning. _In and out, in and out, in and out._ The quicker he forced his lungs to function, the more control he had over it. _In and out, in and out, in and out._ The quicker he forced his lungs to function, the sicker he felt. The endless scroll of buildings and trees and parking lots and sidewalks out the window blurred into nothingness—a spilt tray of water colors, all melding into one pretty hideous brown.

His eyelids clenched shut, scrunching the rest of his face with them. Black and white patterns, tricks of the light flashing, changing, blinding, blanketed his vision. _In and out, in and out, in and out._ He struggled to pull himself away from the nerves exploding all over his body. His throat grew dry, screaming, begging for water. He ignored it, flexing every muscle he had control over until they too, screamed in protest. The steady, familiar beat had long since been cut off and the back of the bus flooded his ears at full volume. He must have forgotten to loop the Game Day Playlist—he never forgot to loop the playlist. He shouldn't have gone to Maya's. He shouldn't have avoided the team all day. He shouldn't have ignored Maya and Tristan and Tori and Zig and that other kid who hung around them—he couldn't remember his name. He shouldn't have hid in Seth's classroom during lunch. He shouldn't have gotten on the bus. He never forgot to loop the playlist. He shouldn't have—

"You all right, Saunders?" His eyes snapped open, his face fell. To his right, a shock of dark hair caught his attention. The headphones were lifted from his head once again, catching his hair as they went; his clenched fists brought them to his lap. Owen Milligan leaned over the back of the seat, dangerously close to invading his personal space. His eyebrows were disappearing somewhere into his hairline, an irritated sneer drawn across his face. "There's nothing wrong with your hearing, right?"

"I'm fine." The words, they came out much sharper than Cam had intended. _In and out, in and out, in and out. _The roar had simmered down to a collective chuckle; he shifted uncomfortably, his conscious mind working to save himself from the floodwaters. Hearing? What was he talking about? He rolled his shoulders back and forth, as if he could shake off the invisible hands dragging him closer and closer to another panic attack. He was caught in the break-zone; no matter how many times he tried to swim out past the endless, repetitive, merciless rolling waves, he was met with a white wall of salt and liquid debris. No matter how many times he tried to return to the hot sand, another surge of the ocean knocked his feet out from underneath him until he was trapped beneath the breakage.

"Your phone, are you going to get it? Or are you just going to let us listen to it ring the whole way there?" Suddenly, he was very aware of the object in his hand. The cellphone vibrated rather violently against his palm, a piercing wail sounded from the speaker. Across the screen, a leaping phone called for his notice, Justin's name displayed beneath it. His face flushing, he murmured a half-hearted apology, tapping the _decline _option, fully prepared for the angry stream of text messages he was subjecting himself to.

Without missing a beat, the phone went off again, a green speech bubble popping up in the center of his lock screen. He turned the volume off, debating whether or not he should turn it off altogether, take the battery out, hammer it into small pieces—anything. He couldn't afford to talk. He couldn't afford to read. The waves kept coming, he kept fighting. _In and out, in and out, in and out._ He needed to win, he couldn't fall apart. _They_ needed to win. Craning his neck to peer around the driver's seat, his eyes narrowed, searching for any kind of landmark. A vague outline of what could only be the Toronto Eaton Centre skittered past him as the bus made a right. His heart sank, beating furiously in the pit of his stomach. Five minutes lay between him and the rink. Five minutes between him and the game.

Time, if it had the audacity to call itself that, sprinted by just as quickly as the smears out the windows. Before he had time to take a standard-sized breath, his teammates were filing into the center aisle, their hockey bags tossed over their shoulders. Big, fat raindrops pelted the windshield like lost birds. A few of the _Ice Hounds _groaned, pulling their varsity jackets up over their heads and half-jogging to take cover under the awning above the main entrance. He remained glued to the scratchy material, his legs numb. His own hockey bag, wedged beneath the seat, stuck out into the center by a few centimeters, catching the shoes of a couple of them, earning him a handful disdainful glares and a montage of insults.

The Driver stood to survey the exiting players, a headcount Cam assumed. Still, he stayed seated, afraid that if he stood, he'd wind up spewing his lunch in all directions. The pounding in his belly continued; he had to remind himself to keep breathing. Deeper this time, _in—hold—out—hold, in—hold—out—hold, in—hold—out—hold. _In the rearview mirror, he watched as Luke Baker and Dallas shoved their way down, the shadow of a joke still breezing across their features. _In—hold—out—hold, in—hold—out—hold, in—hold—out—hold. _He bent down to yank the strap of the ridiculously heavy duffel.

"Waiting for a personal invitation?" Luke scoffed, pushing out toward the steps. Dallas stopped to let him follow suit, a burly hand wrapped around the bottom of his shoulder strap. From behind, he hopped the captain couldn't tell how devastatingly weighty his head felt. _You just better hope we win. You just better hope we win. _Over and over again, his voice bit at his thoughts until they were nothing more than scraps of raw and scathed memories, little pieces tucked away to torture him some other day. He wondered whether it was too late to back out—pack up and go home, telling everyone back home that the team had fallen apart and Mike Dallas had just decided to stay with his billet family.

He knew full well how irrational he was being. He knew he could play, he knew he could win, but this was his first game without a friendly face to run to after the game. He didn't have anyone to look for; he didn't have anyone to show off for. Unless he counted the coach, whom already knew what he was capable of. He knew that as soon as he stepped onto the ice, his nerves would fizzle out, just like they always did, as he'd let his instincts take over, removing himself completely. As much as he disliked the game, the skating cleared his head. Something about the easy glide of his blades against the frozen rink comforted him, almost like walking on water.

Spectators were already trickling into the arena as they slipped through to their locker room. Scarves and hats and homemade posters, all embroidered with _Ice Hounds _paraphernalia, dotted the ticket lines, a few green things here and there disrupted the flow. From what people were saying, the _Sarnia Stallions _had already arrived. Cam kept his eyes downcast as he followed Luke's heels. Dallas's dense hand had found his shoulder again, his knees buckling beneath it. His booming voice echoed through his ears, but he couldn't make sense of what he was saying.

Time kept trucking along, stringing him through the motions. Dallas ran through plays as they changed, spouting orders left and right like they meant something. The older players tossed waters bottles and towels back and forth across the musty room, Owen and Luke passed around vulgar pre-game stories, almost always involving puck bunnies and bathrooms. He tried to stay immune to it, determinedly focused on lacing his skates despite the bulky shoulder pads.

"Whose idea was it to have the rookie start?" Tommy Callahan, a recruit from Boston, moaned, the line-up sheet inches from his face. He ignored it, tucking the frayed ends of the laces behind the tongue. If he was smart, Justin used to tell him, he'd stand up for himself, but quite frankly, he didn't care much about whatever the senior was pedaling. _He _was starting—an honor, especially for a new player. No matter how anxious he was feeling, he was going to take it for what it was worth. "He hasn't even been to practice!" The thick accent warped his words; Campbell switched over to his other skate.

"Coach's." Dallas shrugged, pulling his jersey over his head. "Cam can handle it." His response was met with a plethora of reactions, ranging somewhere between raging disagreement to bitter indifference. Nothing he wasn't expecting—younger players hardly got any ice time at all, let alone starting positions. His father had been piping his good fortune since he was picked up by the team. _"Do you know how lucky you are, Campbell? This is huge! You're the youngest kid in the league!" _Any inkling that it may have been a bad idea to send him out to Toronto had been swatted away like a fly at a picnic. Across the bench, he and Dallas made eye contact. _You just better hope we win. _He dropped back into his little world of tedious preparations, swallowing the air caught in his throat.

Before long, Coach Hardy was banging on the locker room door, calling them out to the pitch. Lights danced across the glassy surface, the stands, now packed with fans, erupted into cheers and shouts as they entered the stadium. He hung behind his teammates, stalling as they took to the ice, hockey sticks in hand. _In. Out. In. Out. _A few black mitts bumped his arms as they brushed past; some muttering words of encouragement, others, sarcastic comments. He pulled up the end of the queue; an odd, disembodied sensation took over. Stuffing everything to the back of his mind, his skates hit the rime. His fingers crossed between the slots in his gloves. _You just better hope we win. _He crossed them harder and harder until he couldn't feel them anymore.

* * *

"The last two slices go to our goal scorers—me, of course, and our little rookie." A goofy, proud-papa smile radiated from Mike Dallas's face as he plopped a gooey slice of pizza onto Campbell's empty plate. From where they sat in the back corner of Little Miss Steaks, the _Ice Hounds _whooped, clapping both players on the back. He couldn't help but smile along with the rest of them. They had won; _he _had won. By some kind of act of God, they had managed to tie the _Stallions _by half-time, pulling ahead mere seconds before the final buzzer, recovering from what had looked like a pathetic defeat.

"That last goal, Saunders was on _fire!_" Zabinski raved, miming a move that would have been better suited for golf than hockey. He averted his eyes, his gaze locked on the checkered fabric, the grin still clinging to his lips. "It's gonna be a great season." The others seemed to agree—another upsurge of noise earned them a few glares from management. The captain waved it off, whole-heartedly diving into new plays he was _dying _to try. His hands wildly scoured the tabletop, grabbing anything he could get his hands on. Luke moved the barren pizza tray to another table.

"Okay, so, here we have the basic positions," He arranged the salt and pepper shakers and a few glasses into the usual formation. "Rookie," he nodded in his direction, grabbing a glass full of ice. His eyes traced the intricate pattern his plastic-self weaved across the tablecloth, narrowing more and more with each move. How on earth—? "You're the only one small enough to slide through the D, well, assuming they try to close you in like this." He waved his hands over his creation, the condensation from the bottom of the cups left dotted trails in front of them.

He nodded, though he couldn't have understood what Dallas wanted less. His fingers wrapped themselves around his raspberry ice tea, removing Luke from the game of restaurant utensils. He picked at the crust discarded on his plate, the tiny pizza skeleton usually tossed to the family dog. His thoughts drifted to his family; did they already know about the game? His mother kept right on top of the hockey blogs, updating the most trustworthy several times a day. If they knew, they were waiting for him to come to them. The last text message he received was from his brother, the conclusion of his ten-message-long rant about how he should learn how to pick up the phone—all unread. He hadn't touched it since the drive in. Perhaps he'd give them a call on the way home; it'd give him an excuse to walk.

Dallas gave up on forcing his new ideas, resolutely munching on the bucket of fries in the center of the table. Every so often, one would go flying, and then a few would come back towards them. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. A few ice cubes here, crumbs there. Back and forth, back and forth. The _Ice Hounds _were consistent; whether in public or at their lunch table, they still acted like a bunch of children. His parents would be appalled if he even _thought _about throwing food. They'd probably have him in Dr. S's office to talk about _Mood Swings and Character Changes and Acting Out _so fast his head would spin. He removed himself from their post-game festivities; leaning back in his chair, he tried to tune them out.

In his attempt to forget the teammates in front of him, a voice, sweet and unforgettable, drew him from the table. "Can I get a cream soda, please?" Maya Matlin stood at the bar, drumming her fingers to the beat of the distant song drifting through the speakers. She ran a hand through her blond curls, shaking them out behind her. Her worn Chucks, joining her fingers, tapped with the tempo. Without hesitating, he pushed back from the table, his dress shoes squealing along the greasy floor. For a split second, her eyes flicked towards him, exasperation undulating from the frown crossing her face.

"Hey," He tried, his shoulder gently nudging hers. She turned her head, the golden tresses scrambling over each other as she did. "Hey yourself." She murmured, her voice completely void of the usual flowers. His stomach gave a feeble jolt as he grappled for something to say; after he had frostily ignored her all day, he didn't know what he was expecting. Had he really thought Maya'd give him the time of day? He had stared through her, never once meeting her eye, every time she tried to engage him in some sort of conversation.

"We, uh, we won." He mentally kicked himself. _The game? _The only thing he could think of was _the game?_ He could feel the scarlet stain bruising his cheeks, his heart doing somersaults in his chest. She stood her ground, paying as little attention possible. Her fingers kept drumming, her toes kept tapping, almost like he wasn't even there. A dose of his own medicine, he supposed. And God did it hurt.

"Cool." She returned, the bitter sting of disinterest resonating between them.

Defeated, he pressed once more, pleading for something, anything. "Maya, I'm really sorry about today." His front teeth clamped down on his bottom lip, his brown eyes scanning her every movement, searching, waiting, begging. _Something, anything. _

"Today? Oh, right, when you totally snubbed me every chance you got." She turned to face him; the frown deepened, twisting into something worse than annoyance. A wounded fire burned behind the cerulean blues. She was hurt, upset. Something that looked an awful lot like betrayal crossed behind the embers, and suddenly, he felt sicker than before. "I thought we were friends."

"I know, I was an idiot. I was—I was nervous and I thought that if I just kept out of everything, there'd be less pressure. I never meant for you to think—I was a jerk, and I'm so sorry." He tripped over his words as they scrambled to get out, each clamoring to be heard. "Can you ever forgive me?" He added, resting his elbow on the shiny surface. With each syllable, Maya seemed to brighten, blushing all the same. The vexation her features held moments before melted away like ice pops on a summer day.

With a teasing glance, she grabbed her soda from the bartender, taking a sip before mimicking his stance. "I guess," She joked, a shy smile tugging at her lips. Relieved, he joined her, wiping the apprehension from his being. "Just make sure you let me know the next time you plan on ignoring my existence, just so _I _don't look like an idiot when I try to get you to talk to me." His smile morphed into an embarrassed smirk of sorts as his eyes fell to the laces of his Dockers.

"Hey," She jumped back in, her lanky fingers grazing the sleeve of his letterman jacket. "Looks like you beat your nerves anyway; you scored, right?" She winked, her thumb rubbing at the small drops of water collecting on the side of her glass.

"Yeah," He sighed, glancing back at the eavesdropping _Ice Hounds. _His hands found his pockets, his shoulders meeting his ears. "Celebratory pizza." He shrugged, jerking a thumb backwards.

"Us too—my sister and Jake's rooftop garden plans were approved. They're pouring over seed catalogues." She griped, scuffing the tip of her sneakers against the floor. "I should probably get back to them before Kung Fu Katie comes looking for me; you know how she gets." Maya chuckled, taking a few steps back.

Her hair fell gracefully over her shoulders, a few loose strands tucked behind her ears. Her bowtie lips curved upwards. Everything from the way she talked to the way she walked to the way she laughed, smiled—all of it, it was breathtaking. _She _was breathtaking. In that moment, he had never felt for anyone what he felt for her. She was different, special. And he wanted to be a part of it; he wanted to be the reason for her Maya-smiles and her Maya-giggles and her Maya-faces.

"Me too…" He trailed off. Before turning back to the team, his subconscious overtook him. "Hey M?" He called, watching as she spun on her heel, the soda straw stuck between her lips. As subtle as a spring breeze, the unintentional burst of confidence scattered across the restaurant, imaginably in so many places he'd never be able to recover it all. She was so beautiful, so natural, so _herself_. "Yeah?" She asked. The light bounced off her eyes; he could have sworn a thousand shades of blue rounded the room.

And just like that, the last glimmers of buoyancy burnt out, leaving him flat. He was too big a mess, too much of a question mark; she'd never. His jaw fell slack, her eyebrows rose expectantly. Mustering the strength to pull together a thread of coherent, complete thoughts, he let the first logical question to come to mind spill over his lips; "See you tomorrow?" He covered, the heat returning to its usual place beneath his muted, brown eyes. She faltered a bit; a flash of what could have been disappointment skittered past her, but was gone as quickly as it had come; perhaps it never was, and his blind hope was simply pulling rabbits out of hats.

Another toothy grin stretched to her eyes. "Yeah, you'll see me tomorrow." With a quick wave, she sauntered back to her table, and he did the same, his own smile dithering.

And somewhere in lowest level of the skyscraper he called his thoughts, he too, was a thousand shades of blue.

* * *

**A/N:** I was kind of iffy on this chapter, but I wanted to get this out to you guys because I'm a really terrible and sporadic updater. I had the first half of this written the night I posted Chapter 6, but when I removed the whole game scene, it was left pitifully short. I tossed the second half together between Sunday and today, changing and rechanging literally everything. Nonetheless, iffiness or not, I actually liked this chapter-it was fun to write. Being out of my element with the hockey stuff was a great experience. haha.

And I also want to thank you guys again for all of your reviews/follows/favorites. It means so much! There's literally no email that makes me smile as much as the [New Review] [New Follower] [New Favorite] emails! :)


	8. Nerves

**A/N: **It's kind of obviously I flaked out on this title. lol. Anyway...

WOW. I can't believe I've been gone this long! I feel really awful and I'm really sorry. I've been super busy, so I'm hoping you guys understand. AP testing starts in two weeks and I've been cramming to review everything I should have been reviewing all year. I'm not exactly Joe-Study-It. I also have a research paper due in a few weeks and, like studying, I don't exactly get things done. I'm more of a "how long can I put this off for?" kind of person. My weekends, as I've mentioned, are really my writing hours. Weekdays I'm either too beat or too caught up to do anything. And I've also been wasting 99% of my time dancing around my bedroom to Fall Out Boy's new album. Well, I don't consider that _wasting, _but my mother does. haha.

So, I am super, super sorry, but NEWS!

These next three chapters (including this one) are a part of my original Camaya documents, which means they were written (when I say written, I'm using it really loosely. Basic outlines with lost of brackets and certain phrases, plus dialogue sketches) before the very first chapter of The Little Things. I actually [wrote] these after Waterfalls aired way back in July. They were supposed to be the start of something else but, seeing as I'm not doing what I was going to do, they're going in here! :)'

This one is filler-y as it was the least developed. I can assure that the next one _will _be better. A lot better, I'm hoping. The ninth chapter will be dual-perspective, just a heads up. I was a little nervous about writing it that way, but I figured I'd run with it. It should be up soon. "Soon" is kind of a blanket term though, so anytime within the next three weeks? I know, it seems like a really long time, but I really do have to focus a little more on school. ;p Chances are, it'll be up before the three weeks are out.

Thank you so much for your reviews and support. I seriously appreciate it!

Love you guys!

~ Kristi

* * *

"So this is good?" His arms spread-eagle, he shuffled his feet in an awkward sort of turn. The sleeves of the mint green sweater pushed all the way up to just past his elbow—"fashionably casual," as Samantha had assured him—and his hair mussed just the right amount, it had taken him what felt like forever to get to where he was. In the mirror, he watched as his older sister beamed, her blunt bangs falling into her eyes as she vigorously nodded her head. "You look perfect," she stated, a hint of self-accomplishment darting between the syllables.

His hands smoothed nonexistent wrinkles down the length of his torso, the knitted fabric grazing the insides of his fingers. In his chest, his heart did little pirouettes, dancing to the song of the butterflies collecting in his belly. He was nervous, but the good kind. Excited was a better word, completely and terrifyingly excited. His giddy nerves stretched from his head to his toes, blanketing him in a whole web of not-so-patient anticipation. He couldn't believe it; it was almost too good to be true.

Maya had nearly attacked him during the lunch period, a brilliant smile easily gracing her lips. _"Do you like _Spiderman_?" _She probed, the grin never leaving her cheeks. For a moment, he was confused, shooting her a cautious _"yes," _sounding more like a question than an answer. She wasted no time in getting to her point. Reaching past him to grab a lunch tray, her eyes played with his. _"So you'll come see _The Amazing Spiderman _with us tonight?" _Ten words was all it took for the fireworks to start. Ten words and he was at her mercy, the excitement already bursting from the seams. It didn't matter who the _us _was, he was going with Maya to the movies. _Maya had asked him to the movies!_ She was so straight forward, so direct. He loved it, mostly because he'd never have the courage to do something like that. Of course, he handed her another _yes, _this one much more confident than the last.

Hockey practices had been cancelled for the weekend earlier in the week, Coach Hardy spouting something along the lines of "adequacy testing Downtown" for him and the assistant coaches. Cam had found that a little odd; how were they to be evaluated without running a practice? He wouldn't dare question it—the less hockey the better, especially after the merciless drills they had been running since Monday's afternoon practice. Apparently, their latest game, while still a win, didn't rate as well with the press as their first game a week before.

Coach suggested Dallas lead the team's practices and take advantage of his Captain status, an offer the senior waved off. His motive was painfully obvious—the guys had been talking about some party for days. It was Friday—tonight—and _everyone _was supposed to be there. The popularity-obsessed _Ice Hounds _couldn't just pass up an opportunity to act like drunken idiots in front of the majority of the student body.

Like the rest of them, he couldn't believe his luck. No hockey, no teammates to badger and tease him, _and _he had a da- was hanging out with Maya. It was almost as if the scales were finally tipping in his favor.

"Make sure you text me when you get home. I want to hear all about this." His sister's chirpy request broke him from his thoughts. He returned it with a tight-lipped smirk. After an hour of listening to her gush over her _little brother growing up_, she had been more than eager to commandeer the reigns of his wardrobe for the evening. Though insufferably bossy and demanding, his older sister was a mush underneath it all; he could have sworn she was happier about his plans than he was. He gave up the fruitless mission that was convincing her his "date" was no more than a friend-date. Arguing with Samantha was like yelling at the walls: pointless and frustrating. It wasn't that he didn't _want _it to be an actual date—his first one at that—he was just… uneasy. Did Maya see it as a date-date? Did she like him as much as he liked her? What would his mom say if she knew he was already breaking one of the Four D's?

His palms moved to the leg of his jeans, his clammy skin catching the rough denim. He blinked a few times, forcing the irrational, swirling pit of worries out like tears. He was going to have fun. He was not going to make himself sick. He was going to function like a normal teenage boy because God knows that's all he wanted. He was going to have a nice night with Maya (and Tori, Zig, and Tristan). He needed friends, did he not? Even if Maya saw him as no more than a friend, she'd still be a friend gained, and he could live with that. For now, anyway. To reinforce the positivity, he defaulted on Dr. Szczelaszczyk's go-to technique; a windstorm of cool air flooded his lungs before escaping through parted lips. The corners of his mouth flipped up into the semblance of a smile.

"Nervous?" She rested her chin in the palm of her hand, the grin seemingly glued to her face. Tottering on the edge of discomfort, he shook his head, coolly carrying the laptop back to his own desk. He caught her roll her eyes. "You wear your heart on your sleeve, Campbell." She ran outstretched fingers through her long locks, tugging on small knots as she went. He sat Indian-style on the computer chair, his hands squeezing his kneecaps. _Was it really that obvious? _Of course it was. It had been _that obvious _for over a year and it made him sick to his stomach. His thumb pressed itself into the space between both halves of his leg.

"Everyone's nervous on the first date." She shrugged. He resisted the urge to tell her, yet again, that it was not a date, not officially. Unless Tristan had a date of his own that he wasn't aware of (which he was positive he would have been—the redhead wasn't exactly quiet when it came to crushes), there wasn't even a possibility of it being a triple-date. His jaw clenched as she continued. "It'll be really awkward in the beginning and then you'll get comfortable and cute and you'll be fine. My first date with Peter was a nightmare, but look at us now!" She winked.

_Everyone's nervous on the first date. _For some reason, it was hard to believe _she _was ever nervous. Not on her first date, not on her second, not even over Christmas break when Peter, her boyfriend of three years, and his family took her to the States to see some tree in New York City. Samantha had always been the confident, out-spoken, go-get-it kid in the Saunders family, always the center of attention, always the cool and collected in chaos. He and his sister were nearly dead opposites. Only thirteen months older than he, Samantha had always been leaps and bounds ahead of him, and sometimes, he felt he was half to blame.

"Yeah, look at you now." He muttered, swiping his fingers across the keyboard, rubbing at invisible fingerprints. If there was ever a definition of _dysfunctional relationship, _Samantha and Peter would have been the poster children. They bounced back and forth between extremes on a daily basis. World Wars III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII were regular occurrences, with sweet, little _Hallmark _moments scattered amongst the ceasefires. She says she likes the instability; _"It makes life interesting," _she'd joke, a smile cracking over tear-stained cheeks. Cam couldn't understand why she subjected herself to the same thing over and over and over again. It didn't make any sense.

She pointedly ignored his comment, skating past it as easily as the puck against the pitch. "Justin is going to _die _when I tell him," She fawned, tilting her head back until her face disappeared behind her chin. "He's been waiting for you to get yourself a girlfriend since you were, like, twelve." With the snap of her fingers, the wonted crimson stain blemished his cheeks, his voice catching somewhere between his lungs and his throat, the hoarse residue piercing the air in front of him.

"Maya's not my girlfriend!" Breathless and mortified, he couldn't seem to find the strength to wipe the scandalized expression from his face. The ever-present, light giggles drifting through the speakers of the laptop morphed into full-blown cackles, steadily climbing toward the level of infectiousness that seemed only she could obtain. His cheeks burned, the heat reverberating between his eyes and nose and ears until he was sure steam was rising in great wisps from the top of his head.

"Cammy has a girlfriend?" Muffled, but far too distinct to be surpassed, a voice drifted to his ears. Instantly, Samantha's head snapped toward her bedroom door and then back to him, her incessant laughter fueling the sudden influx of warmth surrounding him. Naturally, Justin waltzed into the shot, a kind of brotherly-mocking look tattooed to his features. His sandy hair expertly messed, he stooped to lean over the desk back in the Kapuskasing bedroom. "I guess Toronto is treating you better than I thought!" The usual, piercing grey eyes crinkled in the corners as he flashed him what Cam assumed to be his best _Spill It _smile.

"Her name is Maya." Samantha chuckled, completely hidden behind their older brother. Justin's eyes widened, his lips twisting into an overstretched oval.

"Maya." He tasted the letters, rolling them between his teeth. "Sounds exotic."

"If you count the Swiss Miss Box Girl exotic, then yeah, she's exotic." He poked, refusing to meet his gaze. The words came out overly-chewed, like he had broken them into little pieces before he spit them out. The blond-haired, blue-eyed girl danced before his eyes, her natural curls spilling over her shoulders. Little burst of excitement leapt up from his feet, the butterflies beating their wings harder and harder until their power reached his heart. His anxious attention span flicked to the time—6:30—he still had an hour and twenty-some-odd minutes until he was supposed to meet Maya at the bus stop a few blocks over. He fought off the temptation to ask her to meet him earlier—anything to get him out of the conversation his brother was itching to delve into.

"I approve." He shoved a thumb in front of the camera, a silly smirk befalling his lips. "What's she like? When do we get to meet her? Is she a total puck bunny? How'd you meet her? Is she cute? Do you have classes together? What are you doing with her tonight? What are you going to do next time?" Justin rattled off question after question; Cam grew redder and redder with each echo. He knew if he didn't give him answers, he'd become relentless. Justin was not one to drop things, no matter the subject. His ability to string together sentences abandoning him, he stared blankly into the screen, his jaw popping open and slamming shut, hoping something to keep his brother satisfied would come screaming out from somewhere in the back of his head.

He couldn't think as far ahead as the eldest Saunders wanted him to. He couldn't lead himself into a trap, he wouldn't. He was afraid, afraid of how easily everything could fall apart, afraid of the crossfire and how many people got caught in the middle of it, and afraid of consequences and rejection and a whole mess of other things, so afraid that it'd never work out. He didn't want to be stomped on and trampled and stuck in a Samantha-Peter parallel. He didn't want to disappoint. He didn't want to fall short. But he knew he would, he _always _did. He couldn't be a boyfriend, assuming she even _liked _him like that, not with everything else he came with. He was too much for himself to handle, how could he expect someone else, someone as innocent and beautiful and carefree as Maya, to carry him too?

Selfish, so _selfish. _

"Cam?" The grounded voice yanked him back into reality, two worried faces jammed themselves together into the rectangular box, two sets of eyes scrutinized him through the shoddy quality. In spurts, the world seemed to fall back around him. His bedroom felt suffocating, his hands throbbed. His fingers, balled into each other, dressed themselves in red, a few of his cuticles torn and bloody. Though he knew neither sibling could see them, he stuffed them beneath the desk top, clasping them together in his lap. "Are you—are you okay?" Justin stuttered, his eyes even wider than before.

"Yeah," he breathed, mustering some shadow of a happy-looking expression, squeezing his hands tighter and tighter until he was sure he could feel the sticky, metallic substance running over his knuckles. Justin wasn't convinced; he never was.

"Cam, come on, there's something up." He pushed, his words laced with concern. The subtle softening of his features, the sudden removal of the space between his brother's face and the webcam on his sister's laptop, the eyebrows-furrowed, lips-drawn look on his face—Cam knew all of this and he knew what was happening and he wasn't going to let it play out. He wasn't.

"I said I was fine." He snapped, the fire driving it scorching the roof of his mouth as it went.

The pair exchanged glances, the clash of steely grey and warm mahogany radiating through the computer. While they silently fought over what to say next—he knew their tactics like the back of his hand; he was well accustomed to their looks and comments and protection—he rested his cheek against the desk top, the cool surface sending its icy claws deep into his scorching skin. Those brief, little moments he slipped out of it scared him more than the total breakdowns. Unpredictable, insignificant, it seemed the smallest things set them off, but what frightened him most was the fact that he couldn't _remember. _He couldn't pinpoint a start or an end or a trigger; he simply snapped out of it however long after with a new bruise or scratch or crescent scar to prove it ever happened.

"Mom'll be really happy to see your face," A fake smile blinded him as his sister broke the silence that had fallen around the three of them. "And Riley too. He misses you a lot. I don't know where Dad is, but I'll find him. Give me a second." Her lanky frame bounced out of the computer chair, a pair of sweatpants took the place of her forced expression, moving further and further away by the second.

He couldn't handle seeing his family together, whole, happy, and so, _so _far away. He couldn't handle the _We Miss You's _or the _Are You Having Fun's _or the _How's Your New Family's. _He couldn't handle the blaring reminder that he couldn't kiss his mother at the end of it or receive the stiff-ended, almost-hug from his father or ruffle his little brother's hair or run to the family dog. There was a reason he refused to _Skype _with his mom. He was so homesick, so incredibly homesick. He couldn't bear to make it worse, not _then, _not an hour before he had to meet Maya. He needed to prove he wasn't a mess all the time.

"Samantha, wait!" Hurried and crammed and slipshod, his voice echoed back to him; his sister stopped in her tracks, an eyebrow kicked up to the ceiling. "I—I actually have to go meet Maya now. I don't have time to talk to everyone. I'll—I'll call tomorrow." He stammered, kicking himself for the wavered, choppy quality his anti-confidence gained. With both of them rejoined at Samantha's desk, he averted his gaze, his cheeks flushing.

"Oh," Both of his older siblings mumbled the singular syllable in unison. "I guess I'll talk to you then." Justin added, his eyes still painfully narrowed. Samantha stayed quiet, leaving him wondering how their upbeat, blissful conversation had turned south so quickly.

A quick wave and the exchange of timid _I love you's_ and his brother and sister were gone. For a moment, he stared at the blank boxes, the call time flashing in the right-hand corner. _Two hours, thirty-eight minutes and seventeen seconds._ There. Gone. There. Gone. There. Gone. He blinked with it, anything to waste the time he had left. Every so often, he checked the clock along the bottom of the digital screen, the white numbers cold and seemingly descending. His restless fingers locked and unlocked his cellphone, this time seriously considering asking Maya to meet him earlier. The soundless house settled around him, the walls and halls and floorboards alerting him to the emptiness.

Jane and Seth had left hours ago, the latter calling up the stairs as they went; _"Don't burn the house down, don't open the door for anyone, we'll be home around eleven or so."_ Cam couldn't remember where they were going, but it hardly made any difference to him; he was quite enjoying the newfound freedom he had acquired since moving out to Toronto. Back home, being left alone was a rarity; being out of _sight_ was a rarity. While his missed his family like crazy, it felt _good _to have parents who trusted him, it felt _good_ to be able to close a door without constant checkups and questions and knocks.

With one last glance at the blank screen, he pushed back from the desk, the sharp edge of the desk top digging itself into the palms of his hands. His nervous habits kicked in as soon as he stood, his jelly legs carrying him around the large bedroom, his carnival crane arms dropping to pick up this and that off the floor, his hockey equipment heaped in the corner like a dead body. He tried to kick the string of anxieties murmuring in the back of his mind, instead focusing his attention on each item as he shoved it into its designated spot.

_Sneakers in the closet._

_Dirty clothes in the hamper._

_Clean clothes in the dresser._

_Dress clothes in the closet._

_Notebooks on the desk._

_Pillows on the bed._

He had almost forgotten about his bleeding fingers until little burgundy spots dotted the pillowcase of the pillow he carefully arranged and rearranged atop his mattress. Immediately, his heart electrified itself, the beat erratic and completely to its own accord, leaving his other functioning organs in the dust. He clenched his fists as he stormed the bathroom, grappling for the box of band aids. The paper wrapping fell to the titled floor, the plushy bandages enveloped both of his thumbs and an index finger, his fingernails disappearing behind the flaps of adhesive. _Hockey, _he told himself, _you got these from hockey, _hoping that if he said it enough, he might forget and actually believe it.

The mirror above the sink glared at him, his tousled hair spilling haphazardly over his forehead, his brown eyes heavy and tired_. _The light freckles resting along his nose faded in and out as he squinted into the glassy surface. He supposed he always looked this overtaxed, with his fair skin tipping over the fence intodownright _pale_'s yard. It came with the Everything, just a side effect of his constant going. He tried a smile to liven his features, a sweet lie to get him by. The brightness only reached so far before faltering, leaving him looking at the in-need-of-a-break-Cam. He shook it off, determined to refocus on his date (he had given up convincing himself it wasn't) with Maya. He glared back at the mirror before turning out of the bathroom.

His socks muffled his footfalls as he padded back into his bedroom, his toes curling beneath his feet with every step. His eyes on the clock, he slid on a pair of sneakers and grabbed his cellphone off the desk. He'd wait at the bus stop for the next twenty minutes—he couldn't take the stillness of the house any longer; it was driving him crazy. Like six-year-old-Cam, he stomped down the staircase, purposely making as much noise as possible. In the lower hall, pictures shook in their frames, decorative plates trembled in their holders, and he was content.

As if on cue, the doorbell chimed throughout the whole house as he hopped off the last step; a deafening, grating tune filled in every space imaginable, drowning out everything and everyone. He couldn't understand why it was so loud—to his knowledge, neither of his billet parents were hard of hearing and _he _certainly wasn't. His eyebrows knitted themselves together, a glazed stare fixed on the ornate front door. _Maya?_ Would she have told him she was just going to walk the rest of the way to the Clarksons? Was something wrong? Was it even _her? _If not her, then who?His mindless, mental rambling evoked more hits to the doorbell, and he gave in. What was the worst that could happen? Warily, he reached for the doorknob, ignoring Seth's nagging voice in the back of his head.

The weighty door swung open with a great deal of persuasion; Cam took his spot in the doorway—one hand firmly against the doorframe, the other on the handle—just in case. The porch light stunned him momentarily, his eyes narrowing substantially to accommodate it. Three blurry figures, all clad in the same black and red jacket, stood on the front stoop. The foreman passed him an easy smirk and he swore he was going to be sick right then and there. His head began to pound, his heart sprinting so far ahead of him he was waiting for it to slip out of his shirt and onto the bricked steps. Every part of him told him to slam the door, run back inside, do _something. _He froze, ice spreading down the same paths the nervous excitement had travelled only an hour earlier. _But— They were— No— No, it wasn't—_

"Let's go, Rookie."

* * *

**A/N: **So, there's a really crappy cliffhanger. I seriously hate the last 500-ish words or so, but I didn't know how else to tie this up. I really thought this was going to turn out better than it did, but I really wanted to put this out, considering today marks a month of me not updating. If you absolutely lose faith in me after this, I'm just going to ask you to forgive me? lol. I have so much going on, this is just the product of Kristi-Rushing. haha. I have about a quarter of the next chapter written in actual words and it's looking pretty good, so if you can hold out for me, even if this severely disappoints you, it would be much appreciated! :)

See you soon (hopefully)! :)

& Thanks again! :))


	9. The Butterfly Effect

**A/N: **Hello! Thank your for your positive reviews the last chapter; I smile like an idiot each time I get a new one. I just can't help it; you guys are so sweet! AP exams are over (HALLELUJAH!). My research paper has been turned in. And this, this took a little bit of work. I wanted to get this _just right. _I felt like I owed you guys that as well as Cam (which sounds cheesy over the moon and back). What's really funny is that this chapter has been in, like, seven parts since July. All fractional, all skeletons. On my phone, on half-sheets of paper, in severed documents, this has been quite the work in progress.

I know this is later than expected, and I hope you'll forgive me for that. I'm not exactly punctual. The beginning drove me crazy. I couldn't decide which opening I liked best, so I wrote a whole new one that manifested itself as this and I really like it. And then I stressed myself out over how I wanted the chapter to play out- I had two paths. I feel like it's appropriate to make a corny Robert Frost reference here, but I won't.

Is it perfect? No. But writing wouldn't be nearly as fun if I (this) was perfect.

I guess in the roundabout sense, this is the best possible chapter nine of all possible chapters. There's some Voltaire. School is really getting to me. God, when is this year over?

I'm rambling. Redirect:

This chapter is kind of a big one. I don't know if I've said this before, but everything (that has happened/been mentioned) is intentional. Just keep that in mind.

See you soon and thank you so much! :D

~ Kristi

* * *

Something like cigarettes and stale sweat clung to the oxygen atoms floating about their heads, frigid gusts of executioner winds forcing them toward the driver's side. The much-too-cracked window gave way to the February night, flooding the cramped Volvo with its wrath. He couldn't remember whether he had rolled it down or if Owen had opened it for him; somewhere along the uniform blocks, each blurring into one another like smudged ink, he had lost Himself, and with it, all ability to Distinguish.

The silver-cloud-lined sky emitted some ghastly grey light, showering the house across the street in all its explosive, pounding glory. Unrecognizable beats and tempos slid under the ornate, glass front door, inundating the neatly trimmed lawn before spilling onto the cold, damp pavement. The house number glared from the mailbox at the end of the short driveway; _43 Sutherland Drive. _He thought he may have been sick as soon as his eyes found it, his breath catching in his throat, his stomach tightening. Two numbers, fifteen letters, seven syllables, and they sounded like a death sentence.

Surely Maya went to the movies without him, he told himself. She wouldn't hang back because he, being the stupid, selfish, insensitive boy he was, cancelled on her twelve minutes before they were supposed to meet. She still had Tristan to keep her company, and Tori and Zig. She didn't need him. They didn't need him in their preexisting friendship-quartet. And as much as it pained him to say it, he knew it was true. It didn't matter what he did or didn't convince himself of, however; the havoc had already begun wreaking itself.

"Oh God, I need a drink," Owen grumbled, his gaze fixed on Cam's window as it slowly inched itself upwards, the mechanical whir dying as it sealed into the top of the door. "Baker's bitching, Cam's carsickness, that _goddamned window. _I need a drink. I need a drink." The engine cut off as he yanked the key out of the ignition, his mindless muttering ending with it. Anything for a distraction, Cam watched as the senior rolled his head back against the headrest, his dark hair crowning over the top. A few heavy breaths later, his voice broke through the antsy silence once again. "Are we going in or what?" He snapped, a hand grasping his plastic door handle. In the rearview mirror, the Second-In-Command's blue eyes slid somewhere in between him and Luke.

Collectively, apparently, Owen, Luke, and Dallas decided they were, in fact, going in. A ripple rounded the car as three of the four doors were shouldered open, three of the four passengers stepped out into the grey-lighted night. A blank slate forming across his head, Cam clutched the worn leather seats, knuckles white and fingernails blushing. Mouthfuls of the sour, musty air slithered down his throat, falling into his lungs only to be recycled and recycled again by his respiratory system. From the deepest part of wherever the last piece of his coherency laid, he mustered enough resolve to open his own door, his legs still numb against the lip of the bench seat. He'd hold it back like he always did—or tried to—he decided. He'd hold it back and maybe it wouldn't happen.

"By the time you get out of the car the cops will have already broken up the party, Rookie. Let's. Go." Owen raged, his palm slamming into the sloped roof of his car for emphasis. Dallas, surprisingly quiet, grabbed his bicep, some kind of uncharacteristic worry flashing behind his brown eyes. Before he could resist or react or do _something, _his wobbly legs hit the concrete sidewalk, rocking a bit before steadying himself. "_Thank you," _He hissed, pulling his letterman jacket up by the collar. Without another word, they moved forward toward the beating house. Dallas's burly hands formed a vice-like grip on his shoulder that he had assumed was supposed to be comforting, his thumb digging beneath his shoulder blade, his fingers leaving permanent indentations in his skin. He didn't have the energy to tell him to let him go.

In its place, a high-pitched whine ran screaming from his teeth; "I don't feel good." It wasn't a lie; he had been feeling queasy since he got home from school, though the reasons behind it varied by the hour. It wasn't a lie, but it also wasn't the place for it. Neither of his teammates cared and nothing was going to get him out of walking into that party like he belonged there, like he could handle it.

He could almost _hear _Dallas roll his eyes. "This is called _fun, _Cam. You don't want to spend all of your time here holed up in your for-the-time-being bedroom, do you? Go have _fun._" The grip on his shoulder tightened as the captain dragged him toward porch, lights and people and the steady beat of some song he didn't know the name of blocking the front windows. _Fun. _He knew better than anyone that things were fun until they weren't and that was inescapable.

It wasn't until he was twelve steps, eleven steps, ten steps away from the short set of stairs that it all fell. He was shutting down and he could feel it; a dark shadow gnawed at his toes first, then his legs, slowly, gradually, up and up and up. It crept forward, ever-lurking just barely out of sight, just barely past beating back. Everything kicked itself into hyper-drive, working twice as fast to compensate before paralysis set in, as if that would hold it off that much longer.

The stone walkway anticipating his steps told him to run. The stairs just seven steps, six steps, five steps ahead of him to run. The glass door told him to run. His head told him to run. His heart told him to run.

He didn't run.

Instead, his numbing arm pried itself away from his side, electricity in the form of pins and needles shooting down to his fingertips. He wanted to hear here play—he needed to hear her play. He needed to listen to the hum of the strings against the bow. He needed the world of notes, high ones, low ones, blended ones. He needed it. He needed it to stick to him. He needed it to be his piece of her—he needed it. He needed it. The pale gold glow of the rectangular doorbell disappeared behind his index finger, the smooth plastic just beyond grazing his finger pads. He was so close, so close to being better, so close to being okay, so cl—

Luke Baker pushed ahead to the front of their staggered quadrilateral, shoving himself in between Cam and the door. A fleshy hand encompassed the door knob, a bicep rammed into the glass panes, a miracle worked in the door's favor. "Going to ring the doorbell," He shook his head, a condescending sneer edging over his lips. Owen laughed, Dallas tightened his hold.

_So close but no cigar. _The familiar, gravelly, ever-chuckling voice broke free from the locked vault in the back of his head. _So close but no cigar, Cammy. _He could almost feel a rough hand in his hair, the dimpled fingers messing the top before resting on the back of his head. Chills ran down his spine so fast and so strong his shoulders shook. He swallowed hard, his chest burning. As if it were possible, Dallas's hand could have crushed his scapula if he squeezed just a little bit more.

Before he could stop the ringing in his ears or the fading echo or the pain inflicted by his captains hand, one by one, his teammates filtered into the house. Hands, arms, bodies, all moving, all grabbing, all craving, he watched as Luke and Owen were swallowed by separate groups; Dallas too, but he couldn't shake the heaviness weighing down his right side.

And then he was alone.

Music blared through a very expensive-looking stereo system in the Matlins' living room—he'd never been in there, Maya's parents didn't like to risk having their nice stuff broken or damaged or dirtied; he wondered why Katie hadn't told them. It seemed like every student in the school had crammed themselves into the Matlins'. Everyone moving, everyone yelling, everyone tipping drinks, around and around and around, everything spun.

He hadn't moved from the spot the guys had left him in, his sneakers stuck to the hardwood floor. Classmates shoved past him; drinks raised, hips swinging, disambiguated voices running circles. Girls he recognized, girls he knew, girls he had never seen before clawed at his _Ice Hounds _jacket, smiling and half-shouting words he couldn't understand. He'd been at Degrassi for almost a month and none of his behavior worked to ward off unwanted attention. He was an _Ice Hound; _he was supposed to be like the other guys. He was supposed to take the puck bunnies and do _stuff _and be a jerk and outgoing. But he didn't. He stood stiff as a board, his face perpetually petrified.

He didn't know how long he'd been there. He couldn't figure out how much time had passed since he left the house, since he left school—nothing was making any sense, his thoughts and recollection of events crushing each other into powder so fine it slid through the cracks in the sidewalk. His vision was blurring, his mouth growing dry. He needed to get out. He needed to get out. A one track mind on a mission, everything stopped; his eyes narrowed through the swarms of teenagers, his ears listening only for the familiar, deep voice until he found it.

He counted seconds, fists clenched in his jacket sleeves. His footsteps shook underneath him, his legs shook underneath him. He needed to get out. He needed to get out. The bass pounded in his chest as he struggled to make his way to the senior boy at the counter, his muscular arms folded over his chest, a bottle of beer tucked in the palm of his hand. The endless supply of his intoxicated classmates seemed to multiply with every step. A bilious feeling collected in his stomach, threatening to overpower him. He needed to get out. He couldn't be there. He _shouldn't _have been there.

Elbows jutting into ribs, he fought through the hordes, his breath stuck somewhere between his stomach and his trachea. He couldn't think, he couldn't form coherent thoughts, everything he had tried to hold back was spilling over, a Trojan horse breaking through the walls of Troy. The kitchen was so far, so very far. He ducked his head, the prickling sensation jumpstarting behind his eyelids. He couldn't afford to listen to the insults flung behind him. He needed to get out.

As soon as he broke out of the pack, Dallas's eyes widened from where he stood. Cam stumbled over, his eyes wide for a different reason.

"Dallas, I need to go home." His fingers tugged on the end of his sleeves as he struggled to keep them away from tearing at his skin—as long as he was still able to stop _that, _he was going to play the game. He scanned Mike Dallas's face, begging, pleading he was able to put two and two together because he couldn't say it. He couldn't admit it. He tried the swallow the tears dribbling down his cheeks, the tightly-wound coils contracting in his stomach. To no avail, however; they kept coming, rolling, converging, one after the other. He pressed his face into his forearm to get rid of as many as he could.

"Relax, Rookie," He started, his jaw set firm, his dark eyes waving off any unspoken plea. He didn't get it. He didn't understand. He was underestimating _it. _Cam couldn't _Relax, Rookie. _He couldn't. He couldn't. He needed to get out.

"No, Dallas, please take me home. Please, please…" He knew someone had driven him to the party, he knew it couldn't have been Dallas, he kne—he couldn't remember. The fine powder was so far gone. He was so far gone. But he knew he couldn't get home alone. He knew he couldn't walk out the front door and find his way home in the dark. He didn't know what he was expecting from the older boy, but he knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't.

"You need to calm down," he snapped, his eyes anxiously flicking somewhere above Cam's head, as if to make sure no one was headed his way. "Here, have a drink and stop being such a baby. You're fine." The half-drunken beer bottle was thrust into his useless hands, his numb fingers too slow to catch it before it slid through them. Through space and air and time, the brown glass freefell to the hardwood floor of the kitchen, hitting the cherry wood right on the edge of the bottom rim. In slow motion, shards collapsed into a less-than-neat pile, golden liquid coating each piece until they blurred into one.

And suddenly everything stopped. The party disappeared. The music disappeared. The entire student body disappeared. The Matlins' house disappeared. Dallas disappeared. Toronto disappeared. And he was back in Kapuskasing. He was back in his house. _He was back in his house. _

_ His brother's friends kept popping in and out of the kitchen, their unnaturally large hands depleting the beer bottle population on the center island. Half full, almost empty, barely opened—alcohol, soda, and water formed cliques among them. A few of them shot him wary glances as they went; a mixture of fear, confusion, and sympathy fell to pieces around him each time. Most of them didn't even notice him crouched against the cabinetry, eyes bloodshot and shoulders quaking beneath some invisible weight. _

_ It wasn't invisible to him. He saw it and he felt it and he carried it and he couldn't take it. _

_ The incoherent, scratchy melody of the current song reverberated in his temples. The sticky, stale stench of sweat and booze rose to the ceiling like clouds of black smoke. The house was on fire. Or maybe that was him._

_ Samantha was safely tucked away in her bedroom upstairs; Riley snuggled close, more than likely questioning why he couldn't go play with Justin. Cam wanted more than anything to race up the stairs and join them—Samantha's fingers tracing circles on his back like their mother until he fell asleep, Riley's sticky-sweet toddler smell; he needed the security. He needed to find a way out of the hole he had fallen into. He needed to feel like he'd be okay again. _

_ But he knew he couldn't. He couldn't run to his sister. He couldn't dodge his brother. He couldn't even go to his parents; too early, they packed up the car on Thursday morning and left for God knows where and for God knows how long. _"Daddy just needs to get away from all of this,"_ he overheard his mother say to his sister Wednesday night. _"He needs to get away from everything for a little bit."

_ But he didn't "_need to get away from everything." _He needed to get away from Cam. He needed to not have the constant reminder and the blaring mockery of a son and the weight of his mistake. He needed to leave before he did something to Cam—he said so himself. _

_ Cam was so tired. Exhausted, depleted, overtaxed—he needed rest. He didn't deserve rest. Local juniors and seniors walked past him every so often, tossing empty wine coolers, beer cans, and beer bottles into the black garbage bag tucked into the drawer up and to the left of him. A few people asked if he was okay. He didn't answer. _

_ His head drummed with the song, gunshots ringing through his temples. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be here at all. Everything hurt. Breathing, seeing, crying, being, _living. _He didn't want to do it. He couldn't do it anymore. Every day it just got worse and worse. Guilt. Pain. Panic. Repeat. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to fix it, fix him. He didn't know if it could be fixed. _

_ From the archway of the kitchen, some hot-shot basketball player hurled an empty bottle toward the garbage bag, his body off balance and aim faulty. Instead of precisely landing into the black plastic, it fell short, crashing onto the linoleum tiles. Green glass sprung up in response, showering his feet in little glimmering pieces. He didn't flinch. _

_ His eyes dropped his arm; four, crescent shaped ruts fell smack-dab center with another falling on the inside near the crook of his elbow, shining crimson under the bright lights. He didn't know when they happened. He didn't know how they had gotten there or why they were there or who had seen—nobody could see. Justin would be mad. He was always asking him whether or not he was okay, whether or not he felt good—if he saw these and Cam couldn't tell him where or when or how he'd gotten them, he'd yell. He couldn't be yelled at. Not anymore. _

_ He needed to get rid of them. All rationality falling to the wayside, his mindless fingers wrapped themselves around one of the larger shards of glass, pressing uncomfortably into the palm of his left hand. He needed to get rid of them, so he did. _

_ The use-to-be beer bottle traced a quick, jagged line down the length of his right forearm, the crescent grooves disappearing within the river cracked across his skin. Like the Nile, blood spilled over the river banks, hitting his jeans, his t-shirt, the linoleum tiles, a scarlet pool forming on the ground next to him. And for a moment, everything ceased. And he wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. He stared, mesmerized, the room fading around him. Everything was getting cloudy. Too cloudy. He couldn't see anymore. His hearing dipped in and out. Someone was calling his name, telling him to let go, someone was shouting for help. Where was everyone? Where was he? Someone was calling his name…_

"Jesus Christ, Cam, let it go!" Mike Dallas screamed, his large hand gripping his wrist. They locked eyes as Campbell fell back into the room, panting, yet still so out of breath, like none of the air made it any further than his teeth. His lungs were filling with water, his nose burning, his chest on fire. His body grew limp, his hand rolling open to reveal a tarnished piece of glass stuck to his palm.

His breathing grew so ragged, so shallow; it was like he couldn't catch up with the rest of himself. His trembling fingers tore through his hair, stopping to tug on the roots, blood sticking to his forehead. His ribcage began to close in on all it protected. Images of bone fragments puncturing his lungs hindered his breathing even more so. Dallas's lips were moving, he was saying something, _what was he saying… _Excruciating shockwaves of pain reverberated throughout his entire body; his two front teeth clamped down on his bottom lip to barricade the cries of agony that were building behind his tongue. The racehorse inside his chest hammered on, stopping at nothing. Surely it couldn't keep up like that! His vision began to tunnel as lightheadedness took control of his subconscious. He was falling, falling, falling. And he couldn't stop it.

He was so nauseous, so sick. His panicked state tore itself away from Dallas as fast as it could, throwing itself back through the crowd. He didn't know where he was going, but he pressed on, he pressed on and up, up the stairs. With every step he cracked more and more and he could feel eyes following him but he kept going, up, up, up.

His captain called out to him, clinging to some last shred of hope. Cam was too far gone to acknowledge it.

* * *

_I am not upset. _Maya Matlin told herself, her blue eyes sparkling beneath the lights in her shared bathroom. She really wasn't. She had spent too much time being upset that evening. If Cam didn't want to go out with her, so be it. It was his loss. Or maybe it was hers. Either way, it didn't matter because it wasn't going to happen. Ever. _You don't cancel on someone ten minutes beforehand. _Okay, she was still slightly miffed, her running commentary tipping back over the fence. But she had the right to be. _Yes, I should be upset. _She resolved, bending down to rifle through the cabinet beneath the sink for a specific hair tie.

It had been one-hundred and thirty-three minutes since he had told her he wasn't coming; he had some kind of hockey thing, he told her. She knew it was a lie. She had spent thirty of those minutes reading and rereading the message, dumbfounded. Why hadn't he just called? If he didn't want to see the movie, he should have said so. Then she would have been able to tell him that Tori, Zig, and Tristan were not even invited and it was just supposed to be them—maybe she'd have been able to guilt him into it. Twenty-five more minutes were spent trying to come up with a response. In the end, she went with "oh," which never got a reply. The last seventy-eight minutes she spent in the bathroom—sitting on the fluffy bath mat Katie _had to have, _staring at herself in the mirror, repainting her nails, rubbing of the light makeup she had applied for God knows what reason, all the while, ranting and raving over the boy she though felt the same.

_But I'm not upset, _she reminded herself, contradicting what she should have been.

As she knelt on the tiled floor, the bass reverberated through her legs; Katie's party must have been in full-swing. She hoped she was having fun, because Maya was never letting this happen again. Though fifty bucks richer, it wasn't worth it. Tomorrow morning, she was going to have to help a hung-over Katie put the house together. Their parents would be home Sunday night and everything had to be just the way they left it. She wasn't going to go down for any more of her sister's crazy antics. Not only that, but it also came as a personal expense and bother. _She _had to chip in for the carpet cleaner rented beforehand. _She _had to chip in for snacks—she wasn't even going to be at the party, she wasn't even supposed to be _home. _She also had to make sure no one came upstairs, no one went in their parents' room, no one messed around in the bathrooms; basically, she was in charge of everything Katie should have been. This wasn't her party.

But like a good little sister, she shrugged it off, promising herself she'd get Katie to pay her back one way or another.

Musical-note-printed scrunchie in hand, she pulled herself back to her feet. Her lanky fingers twisted her blond waves into a messy bun, the hair tie fitting over top, thrice tightened. She fixed her glasses and flashed a quick smile, the mirror following her every move. The outfit she had planned on wearing lay in a heap behind the bathroom door. In its place, a loose-fitting t-shirt that had been Katie's at one point clung to her bony shoulders, a pair of yoga pants coating her legs. The yellow walls seemed to give her a new, sickly-tint she'd never noticed before. She leaned in, her face inches from the glass, her palms pressed into the granite countertop so hard her wrists stiffened. Her eyes, still blue as ever, looked a little emptier. Her pink, bow-tie lips a little paler. She shook it off, reminding herself once again that no, she was not upset, and no, she didn't care… about anything.

Just as she pried herself away from the parallel universe, her bedroom door squealed open before colliding with the doorframe, some sort of rough clothing scraping against the wood. She froze, her breath catching. Someone was in her room, _someone was in her room! _What was she going to do? Hundreds of drunk kids were in her house and one of them had made it all the way up to her bedroom. _No, no, no. _Her eyes darted to the open bathroom door; whoever was out there wouldn't have been able to see in… right? Her hands still braced against the counter, she listened for any threatening movements just ten feet away, hoping to God it wasn't a couple looking for privacy. _Katie owes me. She owes me so much. _Her eyes fell closed, her bottom lip sucked in to keep from making any noise herself.

Nothing of the sort came—no passionate, under-aged lovers, no smelly, inebriated teens looking for a place to throw up for sleep or anything stereotypical of a high school party-goer. Instead, beyond her line of sight, strangled and choppy breaths, swallowed before they were completed, punctured the air between her and their creator. It was a boy, she concluded—a very, very upset boy. Immediately, she shocked herself back into mobility, her curiosity getting the best of her.

Maya slowly made her way to the doorway; the choked sounds sounded more like suffocated sobs the closer she got and her heart began to pound with them—sporadic and without rhyme or reason. Her natural sympathy, though thoroughly suppressed that night, flooded her veins. Her mother had always told her she was a kind spirit, that she was good at making people feel better, good. She hoped it would work this time because the boy beyond her line of vision sounded far more upset than anyone she had ever seen.

Cutting her losses, she powered through the door and out into her cool-colored bedroom, the baby blue walls stunning her a bit. Nothing, however, could stun her more than the sight heaped at the foot of her bedroom door.

Campbell Saunders, _The Campbell Saunders_, the boy she'd been crushing on since she looked into his big, brown, puppy-dog eyes—regardless of the lunch caked to her shirt—the boy she thought was absolutely perfect, problem-less, privileged, _perfect , _sat tucked into her bedroom floor, his quaking, bandaged fingers treading and tugging the same chestnut locks she had been cursing in the bathroom for one hundred and thirty-three minutes, leaving smudges of blood along his forehead. Sloppy, broken cries fell from his lips as the gut-wrenching, asphyxiating rasping continued, his shoulders rising and falling far too quickly. She couldn't seem to pull her jaw back to join the rest of her face.

Unable to do anything else but stare, dumbfounded, she watched as he crumbled and shook and broke; her self-denied anger crumbled and shook and broke with him, leaving her with nothing but utter confusion. Her cheeks grew pale, like all the heat in her body had abandoned her in the middle of the artic. She couldn't believe it. Campbell Saunders. _Campbell Saunders._ There was no way this was the same boy. There was abso—

_"You only see what people want you to see."_ Katie had spat that phrase at her feet too many times to count. When she was sick, when she was in rehab, when she tore her knee and insisted she keep playing—it became a mantra of sorts for the eldest Matlin. The artic spread through her body. _You only see what people want you to see; _Cam never wanted her to see this part, he never wanted _anyone _to see this part. Her numb legs fell out from underneath her, bringing her to her knees just inches from the very vulnerable sophomore.

"H—hey," she tried, her voice trembling as much as his hands and shoulders and legs. Her fingers strained themselves to graze the sleeve of his jacket—if only she could hold him, console him, anything to calm him down. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know he couldn't do that himself, let alone _breathe, _and she was getting nervous. She had no idea what was happening or _why _it was happening, but she knew it wasn't normal and it wasn't okay and something needed to do be done; he needed help. After an agonizing journey to the red fabric of the _Ice Hounds _jacket, her index finger slid against the silky exterior, her whole hand following suit.

Unfortunately, she should have recognized that it wasn't going to go over like she had thought. Like he'd been burned by the scathing tongues of fire, his head sprung from his knees, his whole body tensing and recoiling, a look caught between mortified and petrified painted across his flushed, tearstained face. The terrifying, suffocated breathing continued, pain etched into his dilated eyes. His gaze never left hers, his intensifying need for something, anything to get himself back on track bursting from the seams of his clothing, now sticky and damp with sweat. His arms brought themselves to his face, crossing over his nose; his fingernails clawed at the stitches in his jacket.

With the loss of eye-contact, her anxiety skyrocketed. "Cam, you're okay," she cooed, pressing her back against the wall beside him. Afraid to touch him again, she continued to whisper, a forced smile crawling to her lips, praying he could hear it. Over and over and over again, she repeated herself, desperation thrashing through her stomach. Nothing was working. In fact, it seemed to be having the reverse effect; ear-shattering, chilling, guttural screams expelled themselves from his diaphragm, he'd hardly taken a proper breath in almost twenty minutes, perhaps even more. Her subconscious flipped through health class lessons; _how long can you go without breathing? How long until you pass out? How… _She needed to help him. She couldn't help him.

Reluctantly, she snaked an arm around his waist, her frantic fingers groping for his cellphone. There had to be someone to call in there—his mother, father, billet parents, anyone. The artic was replaced by the desert; her cheeks grew warmer and warmer and warmer as she shoved her hands in his pockets, a feat that proved near impossible given his position. Cam didn't seem to notice much, or perhaps he was too out of it to fight her off again. Finally, the tips of her fingers hit the familiar shape in his right pocket. Pinching the very top of the gel case, she pulled the phone up and out, the boy's muscles clenching beneath the sweater donning his torso.

"I'm going to get you help, Cam," she whispered, more to herself than to him. She thanked God he didn't have a passcode to unlock the screen before flipping straight to his contacts. She weighed options—should she call his mom? What use would she be twelve hours away? She had tried talking to him and holding him and rubbing his goose-bump covered arms and nothing had worked. What else could his mother possibly tell her to do? With that, she crossed off his father and siblings as well, leaving her with two choices—call his billet parents or find Mike Dallas in the abyss downstairs. Her mind auto-piloted and she tapped the one of the only known names on his rather short list.

"Cam?" The phone barely rang twice before the vaguely familiar voice carried through the line, a mirage of loud noises filling in the background before thinning out. Her heart sank—he wasn't home. Mr. Clarkson wasn't home. She had never seen an angry Cam; would disturbing his billet father on a night out do it?

"Mr. Clarkson? This is Maya—Maya Matlin, Cam's friend." She yelped, struggling to pull herself together. The tears that had started falling however long ago dripped onto her tongue as she spoke, leaving their salty, warm taste in her mouth long after they disappeared.

"Maya? Why do you have—is something wrong?" Stone serious, she bit her lip to keep from crying out, her free hand returning to the older boy's back, what she hoped were soothing circles spilling from her fingertips.

"Cam, he's—I don't know what to do!" She sputtered, spouting a fragmented version of the night's events. Katie's party, Cam's arrival and subsequent breakdown, the screaming, the crying, the look of pure terror spreading the length of his face, the shaking—by the end, she couldn't stop the little rivulets flowing over her chin.

"Shit," The word, followed by the slamming of a car door hardly registered. "How long?" He snapped. Mr. Clarkson sounded furious, but she couldn't tell at what.

"I-I-I don't know," she stammered. "Twenty, twenty-five minutes?" Pinning the phone between her ear and her shoulder, she scraped at the moisture dotting her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"I'm a little over an hour away," he paused, a distant female voice murmuring somewhere near him—'_he's having a panic attack, Seth! I'm calling Kathleen; he's going to get hurt!' _Before she could process what the woman had said, Mr. Clarkson cut in_. "_Just keep doing what you've been doing—he has to snap out of it eventually. He'll be okay, just keep talking to him." He softened. "I'll be there as soon as I can, okay? I'll take him home."

"Okay," she sniffed. She didn't have time to remind him that his presence wouldn't exactly be welcome at a party before the line went dead.

Completely in shock, Maya continued drawing neat circles on his back, syllables that sounded something like what a mother would use to comfort her child falling hopelessly at her feet. She lost track of time, seconds meshing with minutes meshing with space meshing with memories. Somewhere along the line, the screaming beside her had stopped, as did the horrible sobs and ragged breaths and panic symptoms. Somehow, she had disentangled herself from the heap that had become the two of them and gotten up and Cam's arms had fallen to his sides and his head tipped back against the door.

"Here," a trembling hand offered a glass of water to the boy still tucked into her bedroom floor, little droplets climbed the sides of the paper cup with each jerky shake; he didn't look at her. Instead, he extended an arm rather half-heartedly, full-scale earthquakes rolled off his fingertips in comparison to hers. Exhausted and haggard looking, he pulled the _Scooby Doo _printed cup to his lips, shadows of difficulty accompanying his breathing.

She sat down in front of him again, pulling the over-decorated first aid kit she had made in girl scouts over five years ago off a nearby self. "Can I see your hand?" She whispered, part of her scared to speak any louder. The look of defeat sprawled across his face was heartbreaking, embarrassed tears of their own sort stormed his corneas. He did his best to rub them dry.

"I don't like parties either," Maya murmured, bypassing the peroxide and heading straight for the last pieces of gauze in the box—he didn't need any more pain, she decided. The surgical tape, that she found rarely stuck to anything, rounded his hand twice, just to be sure. She knew full well the party wasn't his problem. She knew his demons ran deeper than that, much, much deeper. But she felt she owed him something, something to salvage his dignity or manliness or whatever _SizzleTeen _said to do after you see your boyfriend (potential, in her case, maybe) cry. His eyes didn't leave the carpet.

"I'm so sorry," he returned, a gentle quiver breaking his letters. "You must think I'm such a freak. God, I'm so stupid." His fists clenched beneath him, the white tape bubbling off the back of his hand.

"Cam, it's fine. You're fine. It happens to everyone." She tried, moving in next to him once again.

"No it doesn't!" He cried. "Normal people don't freak out like that and they don't feel like they're forgetting how to breathe or like they're dying or like they're never going to feel okay again! It's not fine and I don't want to do this anymore!" His words rang through her head, through the room, the whole house, for that matter.

"Cam…" Her interjection went ignored.

"It screws everything up—I screw everything up. I'm so sorry, Maya. I'm so, so, so sorry." Unnecessary apology after unnecessary apology collapsed between them. She couldn't take it.

Without waiting for him to say anything more, she laced her fingers between his, squeezing tight. For a moment, he just looked at her, a partially startled look breezing across his features. Her head nestled into the space between his neck and shoulder as she drew smaller-scale circles on the top of his hand. His head rested against hers in due time, the palm of his hand warm and comfortable in hers. She could hear his heart, rhythmic and calmed, beating like it's supposed to. His lungs worked like proper lungs, his labored breathing silenced. And maybe she was wrong before. And maybe she really didn't care… about anything. And she melted into him, because they were supposed to have all along.

"There's this butterfly called the chaos butterfly," she started, a semblance of a smile running into his cushioned shoulder. "If just one of them flaps its wings in Africa, it can cause an earthquake on the other side of the world. All of these terrible things can happen because just one of them decides to fly away or land or eat whatever chaos butterflies eat, but they sure are nice to look at."

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**A/N: **I have a few things to say.

a) Wow, this chapter was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

b) I literally just wrote the whole Maya side now.

i. By the way, did the dual-perspective format work? I'm not going to do it all the time, and probably not for a while, but I really wanted to try it.

c) I really hope you enjoyed this because I was really freaking proud of the first half and if you've read my author's notes, that's kind of rare.

d) I wish I could show you all of the crumpled pieces of paper I scratched this out on between math, English, chemistry, and Spanish classes. This chapter could have been over 10,000 words if I kept everything. lmfao.

e) I'm super sorry this is almost two weeks later than I said it would be. Apparently, the end of the year is the appropriate time for projects in every. single. class. xp

f) I really have no clue whether or not there is such a butterfly as the "chaos butterfly." When I was in grade 7, my science teacher told us to be creative when we were learning the Butterfly Effect and we drew out this really beautiful butterfly and it just kind of manifested itself as a real thing in my head. I don't know.

I hope you enjoyed, you guys mean the world to me! xx


	10. The State of Being

**A/N: **I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was really planning on updating more often during the summer, but I've just been so busy! My sophomore year ended the 14th, I left for a youth group camping trip the 17th, I got home the 21st and literally had to take another week to recuperate, both of my parents work six day work weeks, so any time either of them gets a vacation day, we do things, I'm in the middle of getting things together for my Sweet Sixteen (which is a helluva lot more work than I thought it would be), and with summer comes summer work. A big smile, thank you, and shout out to my teachers for junior year— you guys are awesome! Perhaps this sarcasm is a little misplaced before I even formally meet you, but you know, I do have better things to do.

Like write this! yes!

I am so incredibly thrilled with the positivity coming from all of you. Seriously, youdabomb. I was uberproud of that last chapter and everyone seemed to like it so there's a big thumbs up for my self-confidence! Unfortunately, this one is not as good as the last, and more filler-y than anything else, and also shorter. I've written thirty-five-hundred different versions (more or less) of this chapter, and go figure, this is the first one. The next chapter, which should be up super soon if everything goes as planned, should be better and definitely have more substance. I'm sorry if this falls flat with you; I've been really frazzled lately. lol.

On a lighter note, Degrassi is back! I kind of love Miles, but fingers crossed he is neither a huge jerk (as his selfie promo kind of implies) nor ridiculously self-destructive (as shown on Thursday's ep. His father- oh my oh my) because I will be so upset if another one of my beloved characters falls through.

Thank you so much for your support and patience!

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The fluorescents radiating above the bathroom mirror hurt his eyes, dry and pickled with too many tears. He kept them closed, almost hoping he'd fall asleep and forget every last detail of the night. Not that he remembered that many; he never did. But he remembered enough to know he'd never be able to face Maya again, or Dallas for that matter, perhaps even Owen and Luke, and by extension, the rest of the team, and by association, Coach Hardy. But worst of all, he couldn't stand to face himself. He _hated_ himself. He hated how stupid, how vulnerable, how _pathetic _he was. Involuntarily, he wiggled his fingers, stifling a yelp as whatever healing process had taken place in his palm was reversed.

"Damn it, Campbell, if you'd quit hyperextending your hand maybe it'd stop bleeding!" Seth sat on the bathmat across from him, a roll of paper towels tucked under his arm. He held a wad to the blood cleaving into Cam's skin, his free hand preventing him from moving. Cam refused to open his eyes, his chin lolling against his chest. He was so tired, so, so tired. His limbs were lead; his legs hung off the edge of the toilet like dead weights, his pant legs brushing against the porcelain. He was so tired, but his head wouldn't stop. A million and one reasons to stay awake kept him conscious, a million and one things to worry about, a million and one things to eat him alive.

He didn't want to do it. He just wanted to sleep for as long as possible, maybe even forever.

If he strained himself, he could still catch the faint wisps of the tail-end of Jane's telephone conversation. She'd been talking to his mother since they'd been home, maybe even before then. He could have sworn he had begged and pleaded and probably even cried for her not to call home—apparently, his say-so pulled no weight. To be expected, of course. He had lived his whole life under the watchful eye and careful decisions of everyone else. _This is for your own good, Campbell. We know what's best for you, Campbell. This is helping you, Campbell. You're sick; it's not your fault Campbell. You want to get better, don't you Campbell? _He was tired, so, so tired.

His billet mom's voice grew clearer and clearer by the second, her footsteps chasing the smooth, even pitch. Seth continued to soak up the crimson, pooling liquid with his paper towels, asking him mindless questions, one after the other. Cam remained mute, chalking his babbling up to his wanting him to stay awake—it wasn't that hard; as soon as he had heard Seth mention _stitches, _any possibility of falling asleep quickly escaped through the cracked window. The lights went to his head; their voices went to his head. He just wanted to lie down. He needed to lie down before he got sick because he knew it was coming and he didn't know if he could stop it.

"I'm tired," he tried. Suddenly aware of his ability to control his arms, he tugged his hand back, Seth's fingers slipping away from his. His bloody palm hung between them, neither making any advance to reclaim it. The messages stopped flowing from his brain; ripples and shudders and tremors still plagued his entire body. He'd been caught in the residual longer than he ever had before, or longer than he could remember; he'd been floundering in water above his head, waiting, praying, struggling and nothing was working.

"I know you are, kiddo." He sighed, cradling Cam's chin between his thumb and index finger. Through the haze, he could feel his cheeks growing warm, secondhand embarrassment from the Panic Attack Kid clawing to the surface. He knew he must have looked awful— eyes bloodshot, face flushed, shoulders shaking, dark circles hugging his soggy lower lashes. He looked just as pathetic as he felt. Seth knew he was pathetic. Jane knew he was pathetic. Maya knew he was pathetic. His team knew he was pathetic. His mom knew he was pathetic. Justin knew he was pathetic. Samantha knew he was pathetic. God knows his dad knew he was a pathetic, no good, waste of a son. Even Riley, not even old enough to _understand_, knew he was pathetic. He pulled away from Seth's hands, his self-hatred burning in the back of his throat.

Seth didn't reach for his hand again. Instead, he rifled around in the cabinet above the sink, the rustling of crinkled paper reverberating through the bathroom so loud he almost missed the squeal of the door as it opened. Jane replaced the dark mahogany, the house phone glued to her ear. "Cam," barely above a whisper, a smile forced his name through her lips. "Cam, it's your mom," she continued, as if he didn't know who she was talking to. He could hear the hushed, familiar murmur through the crackling speaker—advice, information, do this, don't say this. It made his head spin.

Without giving him a choice, she placed the cordless phone in his clean hand; Seth pulled something like a bandage off a shelf. Hesitantly, he pulled the receiver to his ear. His breath caught in his chest and he didn't know why, his palms sweaty. He resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants for fear he'd stain them and cause another fiasco. "M-Mom?" He stammered, desperately clinging to every shred of self-control he could muster.

"Hi Baby," she sighed so heavy he could have sworn he felt her breath on his cheek. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?" Something about the way she huffed out each syllable struck him as off, annoyed. He could picture her standing at the kitchen island, eyes closed, phone pinned between her shoulder and the side of her head, her elbows propped on the counter, like she'd fall over if she did hold herself up. He didn't know what time it was, but he knew Jane had woken her up, however long ago she'd called. She had work in the morning. Rocks sank his stomach to his feet.

"There's nothing going on." Before he thought out a proper response, his brain lapsed into its usual tactics—deny, deny, deny. _I'm fine. There's nothing wrong. I'm doing really great. _In front of him once again, he watched Seth's jaw tighten, his hands constrict around the flimsy packaging of some kind of medical wrap.

"Campbell," she started, exasperation tainting her typically very light voice. "You need to tell me what's got you so upset so we can fix it." _We. We. We._ There was no _we. _There was only him in the end. There was only Campbell Saunders and all of His Problems in the end because eventually, everyone got tired and walked away. His mother always wanted to depict every little thing as a team event and he was sick of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, much to Seth's dissent, beads of frustration bubbling beneath his skin. He didn't even know _why, _and part of him figured he should have been concerned about that, but he shoved it off, resolving to swallow a few of the pills his parents seemed to think were little capsules of magic as soon as he could get away from Seth's wary glances and Jane's fake smiles and his mother's static-y breath on his cheek.

"I'm tired," he repeated, hardly resisting his billet father's efforts to retrieve his injured palm. A one-sided tug, so half-hearted he wondered whether the young man was even trying, reiterated itself so many times he was led to believe Seth was asking, _begging _for some semblance of a struggle. He wasn't in the mood for doing any favors; he dropped his arm, his fingers tore themselves from the sharp bone.

"Do you want to talk to Daddy?" She gave up. They both knew his father was either going to a) yell, b) scream, c) shout, or d) all of the above until _he _gave up and drove all the way up to Toronto to drag him home. Nick Saunders tolerated very little, and his son's inability to hold himself together and then _lie _about it certainly did not make the list. Seth pulled the bandage tight around the middle of his hand—too tight, but he didn't say anything. His knuckles disappeared behind the white, layered strip, the use of his fingers with it. He wondered if he did it on purpose, like somehow he _knew, _and all of the sudden, he wasn't so sleepy anymore.

"Don't play with it." He mouthed, pulling himself to his feet by the countertop.

"I just want to go to bed." He sighed, resting his forehead on his thighs, knowing full well it was going to muffle anything he said and his mom _hated _that. He could feel his heartbeat in his temples. It wasn't particularly painful, but it was almost there and it was driving him crazy. He wriggled his toes to make sure he could still feel them, his woolen socks jutting out in odd places, the gray tips darker than he remembered. He took a few careful breaths, just so his mom knew he was still doing that.

"I wish you'd take this seriously, Campbell," She started. _Here we go. _He bit his tongue until he was sure he had drawn blood. "Your anxiety isn't something to take lightly. You know where you can and can't be and you know you have to take your medication and you know you have to tell someone when you don't feel okay because I don't think this family can handle it if you get really bad again." He stiffened, her words ringing in his ears. Guilt trekked across his chest and down his abdomen and straight to his stomach; he clenched his muscles, trapping whatever air he could in his throat.

"I know." Breathless and restrained, he grumbled, burying his face further into his legs. And he did—he did know. His reddening cheeks hid in the folds of his pants, his fingers tangling themselves in his matted hair. He was itching to get off the phone, his antsy feet crawling further and further away from him.

"Go get some sleep and call me in the morning; I still want to talk to you." This wasn't how he wanted to end the conversation—he didn't want to have her lose sleep over him and he knew she was going to. He didn't want her to think less of him. He didn't want her to be upset with him—he couldn't have her be upset with him. The trapped air came out in one ridiculously exaggerated gust of wind, a repressed cry shadowing the edges. He was a thousand miles away and still managed to hurt everyone around him.

"I'm sorry!" The words followed each other through his teeth much louder than he had intended. A bottomless whine, he cringed, his mother shifting on the other end. He couldn't stop them, their tenacity prevailing over whatever self-control he had left. His eyes snapped shut, the throbbing in his temples increasing tenfold.

"Campbell," she started, elongating the syllables. "I'm not mad, sweetie. I just—" She cut herself off, and he wasn't the least bit curious as to what she was about to say. "I want you to get a goodnight's sleep and I want you to call me tomorrow, okay? You have nothing to apologize for. It's all right. Don't worry about it, I'm not mad." He could tell she was trying to cover herself, but he didn't dare point it out, didn't dare question her. "Sweet dreams, Cammy." A little rushed, a little short, he tried to disregard the detached quality laced amongst her signature line—he'd have to fix it, he'd have to find a way to make everything better.

"Goodnight, Momma." He murmured, the cracked whisper crawling over his bottom lip. He'd find a way. He had to.

It took three seconds for the line to go dead. He counted them, the numbers dancing behind his eyelids like billboards. _1. 2. 3. Nothing._ He waited three more before getting up, leaving the phone on the sink. His socks slid against the linoleum and then the finished hardwood floor and then over the threshold of his bedroom until he reached his dresser. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, _KAPUSKASING BULLS _written in chipped, red block letters down the side. They were Justin's a hundred years ago, too small and too ratty for his brother's entitled taste, but just perfect for Cam to wear to bed—and they smelled like home. He kicked his jeans in the general direction of his hamper, pulling off the sweater Samantha had worked so hard to perfect and pulling on a long sleeve shirt he had gotten from a church camping trip two summers ago.

His sheets welcomed him with open arms as he slid between their layers, his comforter enveloping him in the warmest hug he had received in a long time. His body screamed as he sprawled his limbs in opposite directions, the top sheet entangling his feet. He wasn't expecting to get any sleep at all, his thoughts much too heavy to be tuned out, the budding migraine much too demanding to be ignored. Instead, he traced the imperfections in the ceiling paint, hoping, praying he'd wake up in the morning to find the night had been a terrible, terrible nightmare. But he knew better than anyone that hoping only led to fabricated security and falsities and that everything was always what it seemed and always would be. And that, that was crushing.

The chaos butterfly—beautiful, breathtaking, exquisite, it may as well have been the most attractive creature to grace the universe, its wings bluer than Maya's eyes, its aura brighter than her smile, but that didn't change the fact that it was what it was—caustic, destructive, hellish. Everything was always what it seemed and always would be.

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**A/N: **Chapter 11 will be posted soon! And if not, expect some serious apologizing. ;)

Thank you again!


	11. Dog Days

**A/N: **Hiya! I said I'd be back with a new chapter soon, yes? Well, here it is! I hope you guys like this one—it was a tireless effort. haha. I'm not so incredibly thrilled with it, but I thought everyone would be craving some cuteness (whoops, Spoiler) by now! And I figured almost three weeks was pushing the envelope on "soon." And I also wanted to get this out before my birthday, which is tomorrow (Aug. 2nd), because after my birthday I have to get back into summer work. D:

This chapter may be really cheesy with extra cheese. Really sorry about that! And if it drags, I'm really sorry about that too! Anything and everything you find annoying/awful about it, I'm really sorry about it! xp I'm trying not to be so hard on myself because you guys are so great with reviews and I love reading them, it's seriously one of my favorite things to do. And I am so thankful for each and every one of you—you're the best! :))

Quick disclaimer: I do not own Boy Meets World (the episode referenced here is "A Long Walk to Pittsburgh"), Friends, or Back to the Future, or Degrassi, since we're counting.

Thank you again! {insert heart that refuses to stay here}

PS: I should also say that the title of this chapter and somewhat of the chapter itself was inspired by "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence & The Machine in a way. I don't own that either. xp

* * *

Not even the sun had bothered to get up Sunday morning. Dark, stormy skies hung over the Torontonian suburb like death notices, challenging habitants of all shapes, sizes, and levels of daring to walk out their doors. The street lamps' hazy glow shied away from the dense atmosphere, drawing in as close as possible to the light bulbs nestled in their sockets. Here-and-there puddles spotted winter-laden lawns, alerting anyone who'd offer the time of day to the unseasonably warm temperatures—warm, the term used loosely, of course. It wasn't snowing; it wasn't bitterly cold. No, the earth wasn't the block of ice it'd been since January, but the day was damned before it even started. For Campbell at least.

On the television screen in front of him, he watched as Eric told Corey he saw Shawn kissing Topanga in Chubbie's, the volume turned down so low he could barely hear Corey's next line. It didn't matter, really; he knew all of them word for word. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, his good hand mindlessly shoving handfuls of dry cereal into his mouth, the arches of his feet molding around the edge of the glass-topped coffee table—Jane hated when he did this, but she wasn't downstairs with him, now was she? But he did know he'd been letting reruns of _Boy Meets World _burn themselves into his retinas for far too long. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to change the channel.

Heavy, torpedo drops of rain lapped against the windows, their steady beat growing into some kind of natural crescendo. If he slid down the back of the couch until he was almost lying down, he could see the black, angry storm clouds moving closer, eating up any white space. Corey and Shawn froze for a minute, temporarily stunned by the sudden influx of precipitation, their lines broken and fragmented and unrecognizable. Cam mumbled them for the duo, hoping to God the cable didn't go out.

He brushed little _Cinnamon Toast Crunch_ crumbs off his sweatpants, his fingers sticky and sugar-coated. The ungodly hour of eight _a.m. _flashed from the cable box, mocking him. He hadn't gotten much sleep, despite the overwhelming exhaustion cloaking him in all its terrible glory. Admittedly, he should have expected it. He had spent all day Saturday on the phone—his mom, his brother, his sister, Dr. S, his _dad. _Everyone wanted to say something, like their advice or quips or whatever they decided to toss his way was somehow beneficial or life-altering. Every word, every slip of the tongue cycled through his head, replaying like a broken record that wouldn't stop, no matter how many times he tried to turn it off. It was like, as hard as he tried, he couldn't get away from it and he was sick of it and he wished like hell he would wake up one day and it'd be gone—all of it.

At least thirty unread text messages and missed phone calls sat on his phone, untouched and ignored. He knew as soon as he opened his inbox, he'd be bombarded with a high volume of _Mom's _and _Justin's _and _Samantha's _and _Maya's _and maybe even a _Dad _or two, emotionless and demanding. After he had locked himself in his room following the hundredth "_you're not trying hard enough" _from his father, his billet parents sat outside of it, puncturing the wood with _"we're worried, Cam. Can you please open the door?" _for an hour before they told him they were going to get his parents back on the phone. And now he wished he had complied—it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

He tossed the iPhone aside, his hands falling flat against the couch cushions. The rain continued relentlessly and the characters and scenes of _Boy Meets World _froze and unfroze and jumped from place to place and he felt like screaming because he couldn't catch up with the dialogue and Topanga was moving to Pittsburgh and his sister wasn't next to him to cry about it and Justin wasn't there groan from the next room over—_"She comes back, Samantha, Jesus!"_ But he didn't; Jane and Seth had to be just getting up and he wasn't about to ruin their morning like he had their whole weekend.

He leaned his head back against the couch, his chin tilted upward. His chestnut hair, still slightly damp from the scalding shower he subjected himself to earlier, spilled over the edge, his chocolate eyes staring blindly into the eggshell stucco ceiling. The sleeves of the Hollister t-shirt he had inherited from Justin the past fall slid down to his elbows as he folded them behind his head, his legs extending over the coffee table. Corey and his parents gave up, the picture fragmenting itself before wiping itself blank completely. He should have taken it as a sign to get up and do _something, _but he stayed. What did he have to do, anyway? He almost wished he had hockey practice to get out of the house—almost.

Instead, he tested his lungs. Mouthfuls of oxygen slithered down his throat, hitting the bottom of the organs like rocks on concrete. One after the other, his chest aching as it expanded to make room for the extra volume. He held it, the pressure building behind his cheeks and neck and his body begged him to exhale, but he wouldn't. He counted the seconds as black, white, and silver swirls clouded his view of the ceiling. He held it until he could feel his pulse in his hands and arms and fingers and toes, a steady throb so hard he exhaled for fear the surplus of air was going to give him an aneurysm or something. Even after he let his chest shrink back to its natural size and shape, the ache remained, like he'd been kicked in the ribs. A dull pounding resided in his temples; it wasn't particularly painful, but it was almost there and it was driving him crazy. He swallowed hard, redirecting his attention at the blank TV screen once again.

Behind him, the steps creaked and cracked under the weight of either of his billet parents. He didn't turn around, almost hoping whoever it was didn't even notice him sitting there. He didn't want to talk or communicate in any way, shape, or form—mostly because he was afraid he'd slip and tell whoever that the air was too heavy, too thick to breathe in the house and his head was thrumming to some nonexistent drum and he needed someone to fix it for him because he was useless and pathetic and he hated himself for it. He just wanted—needed to keep his mouth shut and watch Shawn break the fourth wall and Corey stare after Topanga as she left and Eric console him like a brother because he reminded him of Justin. Actually, the whole show reminded him of home.

It was an odd sort of comfort, he supposed. Familiarity—Dr. S talked about it all the time. Samantha adored this sitcom; mornings, afternoons, the middle of the night—if it was on, she was watching. He sat on the unmade, purple-dressed bed with her, their eyes glued to the too-small TV on the other side of the room, their legs crossed over their laps and chins resting in their palms. Hour after hour, like the show was their breath, comparisons drawn between their family and the Matthews, their friends and Corey's, their house and theirs—they might as well have been characters too.

And he wondered if Samantha was in her bedroom back in their Kapuskasing home, sitting and staring exactly like they used to, except now, it was just her and her sarcastic comments and tears over the sad parts and no one to share them with.

"You're up early," a throaty croak spiraled through his ears; a passing hand ruffled his hair. He resisted the urge to push it away, his heart jumping to his throat. His fingers tightened around as much of the leather sofa as they could get a hold on, the wrinkled fabric protesting the unfamiliar tug-of-war. "How did you sleep?" His footsteps followed him into the kitchen, muffled and slippery beneath argyle socks he insisted on wearing. The undertones of some song he could have sworn he knew carried like wafted smells, Seth's infectious humming rolling toward him.

"Good," He murmured, a half-whisper crawling over his bottom lip. They had been very concerned with how he slept lately and he was still trying to figure out why. A part of him wondered whether they had Google'd symptoms of long-lasting anxiety attacks to gage his susceptibility—or even worse: depression. He had heard the word thrown around enough in the last year and a half to last him the rest of his life. He didn't know what he was but he didn't like to be _told _what he was and no one seemed to understand that. He could almost see Jane keeping a checklist in her front pocket, a list of warning signs and checkboxes forming two pretty horrific columns down the sheet of paper.

He blinked hard, and Seth dropped the lineup of questions he usually had on standby.

"This rain is insane; traffic is going to be crazy downtown," he changed the subject, haphazardly rummaging through cabinets above his head. Cam paid little attention, his already frayed nerves wearing thin, his usual anxiety increased three-fold. He rambled on, something about Jane and then something about Degrassi and something about whatsherface and whosiwhatsit and Friday night slipped past and he decided to completely ignore whatever Seth was pedaling because he wanted to forget about Friday altogether, no matter what The Good Doctor thought about _talking through problems_. He defaulted into an autosetting—mindless _yeah_'s and _mhm_'s and anything else his subconscious saw fit slipping through barley parted lips.

In front of him, the TV jolted back to life, the ending credits scrolling over a freeze frame of Eric and Corey. Frustrated, his hands fumbled with the remote, the guide flickering across the screen—there had to be another episode, one he could watch all the way through without the weather interfering with the satellite dish. His eyes narrowed as he moved over to the eight-thirty to nine o'clock time slot: _700 Club_. His heart sank, as hard as he tried to hold it afloat; his eyes stung with the all-too-natural, all-too-common burn of liquefied salt and whatever else. As quickly as he could recover, he bullied himself out of it, reminding himself that medication was a little more important than he'd like to think—or a lot more important. It seemed the littlest things were getting to him the most and he didn't know how much longer he could put up with it. Seth, much to his delight, remained ignorant to his momentary loss of composure.

"And you're sure you're going to be okay home alone today? You can come if you want, I just don't want you to be bored out of your mind with me. And I'm always just a phone call away if you need me." Seth was leaning over the back of the couch, his hands clasped to the right of Cam's head, his glasses skewed over the bridge of his nose. He met his eyes, unsure of what else to do. Obviously, he hadn't been listening and didn't know where Seth was going or when Seth was leaving, but the thought of sitting by himself in the living room all day, watching the TV flip through extreme mood swings catering to the weather was not his idea of a nice Sunday. But he didn't want Seth to think any less of him.

"Yeah, no, it's fine. I'll stay home." He hoped his voice didn't shake too much, his feet inching back off the coffee table as his back climbed the cushions behind him. It seemed to be convincing enough for his billet father. Seth pulled back from the couch and shoved his feet into a pair of shoes near the front door. "Okay Kiddo," his lanky arms dressed themselves in jacket sleeves, his wandering hands groping for car keys amongst the folds of mail and accumulated paper around the dish. "Jane should be home around six, there's leftover pizza in the fridge for lunch, don't burn the house down, don't open the door for anyone," he paused; Cam froze, the inner workings of his mind screaming to be granted permission to cycle thoughts, spinning tornadoes of party snippets and breakdowns and anything they could get their hands on. He swallowed, chewing on his lower lip to distract himself.

"Call me if you need anything." With a cheesy, truly-Clarkson wave, Seth pulled up the collar of his jacket and stepped out the front door, sucking the air out of the house with him.

* * *

Clearly, he was out of his mind.

The sidewalk crawled under his feet as he side-stepped to avoid the sizable oceans that had been swelling from tiny, insignificant puddles since last night, the toe of his sneakers collecting dewy raindrops and clusters of watery mud—battle trophies. His hold on the straps of his backpack tightened as he rounded the next block, his pace quickening. A light drizzle broke through the frigid humidity; he lowered his head, his eyes chasing the waterlogged concrete.

He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his ears, the headlights of passing cars taunting him as he crossed the street. Three hours. He had lasted three hours after Seth walked out the door before growing unbearably antsy. He couldn't spend another second in that house, especially alone. Maya had posted on FaceRange that she was _soooooo bored_, and suddenly, his one-way-ticket into fresh air pronounced itself, trailing his opportunity to apologize to Maya behind. Within seconds, he had shimmied into presentable clothing and packed his _Ice Hounds _backpack with things he liked, hoping she'd feel the same.

Street signs, stop signs, streetlights. Rain. Lots of rain. The sky opened up in a white-hot flash of lightning, the seamless quilt of clouds parting like the Red Sea. He broke into a sprint, the backpack flinging itself back and forth as his feet slapped against the pools—an uneven, choppy beat striving to match the rain. The pin-prink dribbles pelted him like needles, the wind stinging his cheeks. Three more blocks, two more blocks—he could see her house if he squinted. He pressed on, his sopping-wet bangs clinging to his forehead, his sweatshirt absorbing the precipitation like a sponge.

Umbrellas veered out of his way, dirty looks and dirty comments finding their way to him every way possible. He kept going, fire hydrants marking his travel distance. Everything was so much slower, so much more worn in the rain, he noticed. Sluggish cars jerked down roller-coaster-track streets, the pavement cracked and screaming beneath their tires, an uphill battle, though the road fell as flat as always. Heavy, winter-proofed doors dragged shut behind bogged-down people, catching the foot mats as they went. Windshield wipers, methodical and precise, squeegeed across windshields, unable to keep up with the constant rainfall, but fighting for every chance. He wondered whether they even realized.

Blindly, he stepped into the street, the white lines of the crosswalk luring him toward the house just on the other side. Naïve impatience forgot to remind him to check for traffic, his mother's voice—that constant, goddamn harping—refusing to chirp in his ear, refusing to help him out. Even _it _was upset with him and he was quickly coming to realize how fragile his world was. The first cracks had already started to form. He wasn't any good at hockey anymore. He wasn't making his parents proud. He wasn't doing well in school. He wasn't making friends. The _Ice Hounds _was supposed to be his clean slate. Toronto was supposed to be his new leaf. His mom said—she said he'd do better away from Kapuskasing and old classmates and bad memories. Turns out he was doing just as terrible, if not worse; he couldn't keep up. Assumed, of course—when too many factors are depended upon…

He squeezed his eyes shut, prying them open just before the white sparks flashed beneath his eyelids. An SUV squealed to a halt, its horn blowing and driver yelling—dirty looks and dirty comments; its hazards blinked a blinding pattern. He jogged across the street.

From the grooves between the stones in the Matlins' front walk sprung little tributaries, dirt gondolas floated effortlessly around tight corners, the excess of water washing them onto land. He bargained with himself every few feet, allotting himself three breaths per two steps, praying he could hold it together once he hit her front door. After all, there was no turning back. The pouring rain had forced him onto her porch one way or another. Shivering and soaking-wet, the stairs slipped under his feet. _One. Two. Three. _And the torrents of rain stopped, bouncing off the shingled roof above his head rather than into his poorly chosen cotton hoodie.

His heart drummed in his chest as he eyed the doorbell, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. The bag suddenly felt much heavier, the air thicker. He ran a hand through his sopping locks, his fingers numb and stark white against the severely darkened strands. Second thoughts and last minute anxieties sucker-punched him again and again and again, only his fear of Maya discovering him before he could discover her keeping him from doubling over. Eyes wide, hands fidgety—he needed to get inside before he froze to death, the bitter tongues of late-winter gusts reaching beneath the roof.

He cut his losses and his thumb scratched against the pleated piece of plastic; four strings belting out a perfected solo reverberated through his head.

Minutes, maybe seconds later, a blond-haired, Maya-shaped blotch skidded into the doorframe, the ornate, glass door opening inwards. Her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes met his in an instant; her Cupid's bow lips parted in eminent surprise, a single, hushed syllable forming atop them. "Cam," she whispered, neither a question nor an exclamation, just _there_—like _always_. A lifetime passed, his heart trucking along in his chest, his palms sweaty. He couldn't seem to do anything but stare, and she stared back, her eyebrows raised to her hairline.

"Do you, um, do you want some company?" His voice flighty, he surprised himself, his knuckles tapering themselves around the straps even more so. He managed a hopeful smile, praying it reached his eyes. He was afraid anything more would come out breathless, anxious—he didn't want to be any kind of anxious in front of her again. Heavy brown and airy blue, clashing, fighting, begging. He did everything in his power to hold her gaze, however glassy and bewildered. He knew she had to be angry, upset at the very least. And he knew it was all his fault and he knew it wasn't fair. But he _needed_ her.

He needed her text messages and her FaceRange conversations and her phone calls and her smiles and jokes and impromptu _Friends _marathons. He needed her eyes and hair and personality and grounded, effortless attitude. He needed all that was Maya—she was the closest thing he had in Toronto, aside from his billet parents, who were acting more like prison guards than mother-father figures as of late. She was the closest thing he had; he wouldn't let himself ruin it.

"I have _Back to the Future," _he added, clinging to the sanguine shreds twist-turning through his words. Ice settled in his veins; he tensed his whole body to mask the horrendous shudders rolling from the pit of his stomach. "Well, two of them. And popcorn—apple cinnamon, your favorite." Her mouth opened and closed, a fish out of water, stunned. Nothing.

"Maya, please, I'm sorry," he sputtered, "I—I know Friday night was bad and I swear I'm fine and I'll tell you anything you want to know and I'm sorry I just ignored you yesterday and this morning, again, after I promised you I wouldn't and I didn't even tell you I was going to like you wanted me to. I know I'm an idiot and I'm sorry, but please, please, please don't make me walk all the way back home." He didn't even care about sounding nervous anymore, an endless stream of every thought that shoved its way passed his tongue jumping down his throat. Had he not been freezing, his cheeks would have been the deepest scarlet, his throat dry and teeth chattering.

She said nothing, her lips rolled inwards, almost like she was about to cry. He could feel his chest slipping and knees weakening and head pounding and he desperately grabbed at broken strings to find something to make it better—anything to make it better. Without warning, she threw her arms around his neck, her chin tucked into his shoulder. He could feel the sharp edge of her glasses in his cheek, feel her incredible warmth, and he melted, his heart bursting through his drenched sweatshirt. For a moment, he just _stood _there; it was his turned to be stunned into silence. He didn't know what to do, he couldn't think! And he certainly didn't understand—she was supposed to be furious! Instead, she spouted a soft monologue, her face buried in the folds of wet fabric, her lanky fingers tangling themselves in his hood. It took an eternity for him to finally realize he had full functioning arms; he held her back, silent apologies breezing against her silky wisps.

He didn't want to let her go. Everything about her felt comfortable, good, _right. _He didn't want it to end; he didn't want to forget what it felt like. He savored every second. The vanilla and jasmine shampoo enveloped him in an embrace tighter than hers, her gentle touch smoothing the onslaught of shakes tracing his spine. "Let's go inside," her arms unraveled; he didn't protest.

"I think some of my brother's old clothes are still in his bedroom… I can toss those in the dyer, considering you basically swam here." Maya took to the staircase hugging the nearest wall, a mirage of pictures covering it from top to bottom. Maya as a baby, Maya in every school year, Maya on the beach, on birthdays, in front of a campfire—the likewise for a very different Katie and apparent older brother. He hadn't heard much about the eldest Matlin, only that he was six years older than Katie and nine years older than Maya, married with a three year old son, and lived ridiculously far away. He didn't ask for any more than what she gave him; he didn't get the impression they were close.

She tilted her head for him to follow.

He kicked off his dirty sneakers, his socks just as wet as the exteriors. Sheepishly, he slipped those off too, his stark-white toes glaring from the hardwood floors. Maya shrugged her shoulders, an easy grin resting atop her pink lips. Up the carpeted staircase, he trailed the bottoms of her yoga pants, the extra cotton falling over her heels. She took some steps two at a time, completely bypassing a few of the middle ones; he tried his best to keep her pace.

Her boney shoulder nudged open a door across the hall from hers, a rather plain guestroom revealing itself as the white wood exposed more and more of the bedroom. "Mom and Dad decided to renovate a few years ago—Thomas and Emily don't visit much now that they have Charlie." She explained, her graceful fingers digging through the top drawer of a dresser. She pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt—both Degrassi related—turning them over and over in the palms of her hands before passing them off to him. "They may be a little big, but it's only for like an hour or so." Her curls bounced behind her as she turned to leave the room, her eyes catching the light as she went. "Just give me everything we when you're done," she appended, the door clicking shut behind her.

His balance compromised, he held onto the quilt-and-skirt dressed bed to steady himself, quickly replacing his clothes with the borrowed sweats. Goosebumps rose from his arms, little snowy mountains dotting his snowy-white skin. He rubbed at them subconsciously, his eyes drawing him toward the mirror atop the dresser. He looked tired, though nothing out of the ordinary. He _always _looked tired, like it was a full-on struggle to get out of bed every morning, when really, it was quite the opposite. Getting out was easy, getting in was the hard part. His fingers pulled at his cheeks to make sure they hadn't hardened into the stupid, nervous expression that never seemed to leave before gathering his wet sweatshirt and track pants.

Echoing footsteps chased him down the upstairs hall as his bare feet hit the steps once more, the shaggy threads lacing between his toes. "M?" He croaked, his eyebrows furrowed. From the kitchen, he could hear the familiar beeps of a microwave; color rolled over his cheeks. "I, uh, where do you want me to put these?" His clutch tightened around the saturated clothing, moisture running through his fingers. For some reason, he began to feel embarrassed, weak—he hoped to God she couldn't tell.

"Oh, here," without giving him much of a choice, she took them from him, disappearing into another room. Moments later, muffled whirring floated behind her as she came back into view, her usual smile gracing her lips once again. "I put the first _Back to the Future _on in the living room, let me just grab the popcorn."

* * *

"Oh my God!" Blue eyes wide and wild, Maya flipped back to him, her fingers tugging on the front of his sweatshirt, still soft and warm from the dryer, though perhaps the close proximity between them had its fair part in that. "Oh my God! Cam! Why would you do this to me?" She cried, shaking him back and forth so hard his head threatened to depart from his neck, her pit bull-grasp refusing to cut and deals. He slid back further, cupping her wrists in the palms of his hands. "How could you only bring the beginning and the middle? I need to know how this ends!"

"I don't have the last one!" A torrent of giggles spilled through his words as he half-heartedly tried to fight her off; he didn't want to lose the warmth radiating between them, he didn't want to lose the feeling floating just within the confines of his ribcage. "It's Justin's favorite—he wouldn't let me take it!"

"Your brother really sucks, you know that?" She collapsed beside him, their knees touching, their pinkies crossed beneath the blanket she had thrown across them during their ten minute break between the first and second movie. "And you suck even more for leading me into this trap! I trusted you!" Her infectious laughter slithered through his whole body, his heart twirling pirouettes around the rest of his organs. He could get used to this—Maya, all of Maya, and all of him, happy. And maybe she was the missing link, and maybe everything was to fall into place, because after all, he needed her and he was happy.

"Hey, I thought you said you liked a good cliffhanger!" Cam poked, shooting her a mock of an apologetic look, hugging her pinky a little tighter.

"That's not a cliffhanger, that's a huge 'start-freaking-out-because-something-actually-doe s-happen-and-you-really-need-to-know-because-oh-my -God-what's-going-to-happen-to-Marty-and-Doc-and-t he-Future-and-everything-oh-my-God-oh-my-God-but-y our-very-own-Campbell-Saunders-neglected-to-bring- over-the-end-of-the-trilogy' Cam!" Her voice ran circles through his head, the rest of her fingers edging closer and closer to his corresponding spaces. _Your Very Own Campbell Saunders. _ He could definitely get used to _that_.

"I can tell you what happens?" He offered, the pleasantly stubborn smile sticking to every last syllable. "I know it frame by frame, forwards and backwards, inside and out, it's really no big dea—"

"No, don't tell me! You'll ruin it for when you write your brother and tell him to mail it to you so we can watch it!" She cut him off, resting her head against his shoulder. With her free hand, she flipped the TV off the DVD setting, carelessly rummaging through the guide for something to watch. Back and forth, they ran an unofficial game of Twenty Questions, eventually drowning out Rachel and Ross's bantering over discovering the sex of their baby.

Maya was afraid of clowns and loved spring the most—it was the flowers, she said, she loved when everything was in bloom. She wasn't particularly sporty nor coordinated but wished she was and he didn't know why; she didn't say and he didn't ask. She didn't like to swim and was mortified in the second grade when she slipped off the monkey bars at recess and broke her wrist. It didn't sound as embarrassing as it did painful, but he didn't comment, taking any and all Maya-facts for what she handed them to him as. Most of all, however, she wanted nothing more to break out of her siblings' shadow—Soccer Star Katie and Scholarly Thomas shared the limelight, leaving no room for Musical Maya. He couldn't understand how someone so special, so _perfect _could ever be ousted from the apple of everyone's eye for she had absolutely landed herself in his.

She didn't ask about anything he'd feel uncomfortable answering, and for that he was thankful.

"I'm really glad you came over today," she whispered, breaking the lulling silence that had blanketed them for an untimely stretch. Their fingers, now completely intertwined, pulled their palms closer together. He could feel her pulse through her papery skin, matching his own like a lost twin. "I, uh, I was worried about you." He stiffened, his pulse breaking into a sprint, leaving hers in a cloud of dust. "I—you were really out of it, I don't even know if you remember, but you were so scared and I couldn't…" She trailed off, grappling to pull herself back in. "I mean, you don't have to tell me anything, but I'm always here if you want someone to listen or take your mind off things or just talk—anything. I'll always be here." He didn't say anything, his eyes reluctant to glance in her direction or blink or convert light into images. He could feel his hands growing clammy, sticky sweat pooling between his fingers and the creases in his palm, but he couldn't pull away. Frozen, he seemed it happened a lot around Maya.

"I just, I really like you, Cam. I really, really like you." Like a whip, her voice cracked back through the stagnant oxygen atoms, showering the two of them in what could have been sparkles for the response his heart spit back. _I really, really like you. _Maya _liked _him—_him! _He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, frozen, still so frozen. _Maya liked him, she really liked him. _He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe it.

From the back of his throat, a strangled noise somewhere between a hissing cat and screaming tea kettle pronounced itself as he released a breath he didn't know he was holding; his face flushed. "I," he started, swallowing the ball of nerves before the widest smile of the past few months unfurled along the length of his body. "I really like you too, Maya."

Sweet smiles and sweet words, their conversation picked up again, pedaling right past the inevitable, quiet moment of intensity skating figure-eight's around them. Maya liked to laugh. Cam liked to listen to it. They sat side by side, Maya, all of Maya, and all of him, happy. And his dog days, he could see them melting away like the stubborn, muddy snowdrifts still desperately clinging to fences and curbs and the like for their last leg of life.

Without a doubt, he could get used to this.

* * *

**A/N: **The first time I watched Back to the Future was on the way home from a Youth Group thing and they only had the first and second—Maya's pain is my pain and if this has never happened to you, you have no idea how frustrating it is to not know how it ends right then and there. It's terrible.

I hope you liked this! I hope it wasn't too cheesy! I hope it wasn't too long! I hope you didn't hate it! I hope you don't give up on me, despite my sub-par updating!

:)


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